Uprising
by Kariana Kusanagi
Summary: A sudden decrease of souls bound for judgment forces Tsuzuki and Hisoka to investigate in Tokyo. Along with the Spirit Detectives, the two sets of detectives are forced to work together after it is confirmed that they are dealing with the Seven Deadly Sins. Can they stop the demons of humanity, or will they lose everything? Lime later on. Tsuzuki/OC R & R
1. A Chance Meeting

A Chance Meeting  
By: Cece Williams

(Disclaimer: I do not own Yami no Matsuei/Descendants of Darkness or Yu Yu Hakusho. Honestly, if I did, Tsuzuki would totally be naked more and so would Kurama. Yeah.)

(AN: This is my first crossover, so I hope that you like it. I thought about the fandoms for a while and finally did some homework on that. There is some OCs, but they're mainly girls to balance out the testosterone in the fandoms. So, without further ado... enjoy!)

* * *

Tsuzuki and Hisoka walked to their chief's office, and as usual, Hisoka was dragging Tsuzuki away from a red velvet cupcake the taller of the two had been waiting to sink his teeth into. Hisoka was used to Tsuzuki's whimpering from being taken away from the tasty treat, but work came first.

It was there that they were informed that they were to work with people called Spirit Detectives.

"Spirit Detectives?" Tsuzuki asked, his amethyst eyes full of complete confusion as he heard about the next assignment. The last one was easy enough, a pair of lovers that had passed on days apart but were towns apart. Sending them to where they belonged was bittersweet.

"Yes," Tatsumi answered. "They deal with almost the same thing that we do, except they deal with demons and, like us, the supernatural."

Hisoka kept his hands in his pockets, his trademark deadpan look on his face.

"You two are to head for Tokyo right away."

"Tokyo?" Tsuzuki echoed. That was far away from their district in Kyushu, and even further away from Nagasaki. What could be in Tokyo that could want their attention?

"Wakaba and Terazuma will take over your district until it's sorted out."

The amethyst eyed Guardian blinked.

"Oh, and while you're gone..." their boss, a man who looked older than Tsuzuki, interjected before the sparkle-eyed Guardian can speak. "Don't forget to bring back a gift..."

Tsuzuki facefaulted while Hisoka shook his head at his partner. "Idiot," he said about Tsuzuki under his breath.

* * *

Meanwhile, in Spirit World, a teenage girl with her long reddish-brown hair up in a ponytail leaned against the wall, her arms crossed against her chest. "So... when's Koenma going to get his lazy ass in here?" she asked.

"Oh, don't worry, Andrea..." Yusuke answered. "Probably has to change his diaper or something..."

Andrea focused her sapphire blue eyes on Yusuke.

"Now now," Kurama said, admonishing them as if they were children. "Koenma is likely busy."

"Well, I'd wish he'd hurry up," Andrea said before the door opened. She looked at the door, seeing a ferry girl with two girls. One girl had long silver hair and piercing dark silver eyes, while the other girl had dark brown hair and brown eyes.

The ferry girl had dark hair and a dark kimono that seemed to match. "Mr. Koenma will be in shortly," the ferry girl said.

"Thank you, Ayame," Kurama said.

Ayame nodded before she left. The two girls walked around before their eyes went to the girl against the wall.

"Hi," the silver haired girl said. "I'm Viola, and this is my good friend Chloe."

Andrea looked over and blinked. There was no shame in actually sounding like herself, at least to keep up appearances. "Hey," she said. "I'm Andrea."

"That's a cool name," Chloe answered.

"Yeah, I guess," she replied. "Anyone know when that toddler's gonna show up?"

"No, I'm sorry," Viola answered. "We don't know that ourselves. Although... he said that there'd be some new people telling us about this case."

"New people?" Andrea asked, blinking. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know," Chloe answered. "I think Ayame said something about a Guardian or something..."

"Yeah, a Guardian of Death," Viola answered.

Andrea blinked. "A Guardian of Death? Sounds morbid," she said.

"Not just one, TWO," Chloe said.

Yusuke shook his head. "Do we really need two more people on our team?"

Hiei looked from another wall. "Detective, they're probably there to babysit you and the moron," he said.

Kuwabara, who had heard everything, looked at Hiei. "Look, Shorty, I can take care of myself," he said, proudly flexing his arms.

"Yeah, well, the last case, you got rescued by Yusuke," Hiei answered. "How's that for taking care of yourself?"

"Hiei..." Kurama said, shaking his head.

* * *

Meanwhile, Tsuzuki and Hisoka had teleported themselves to what was known as Spirit World. The walls looked regal, and as usual, Tsuzuki had to keep up with Hisoka. "Are you sure we're going in the right direction?" he asked him.

Hisoka rolled his emerald green eyes. "Duh," he answered. "Of course we are. Don't you hear the voices?"

Tsuzuki stayed silent for a moment... and only that. "Oh, yeah..."

"Idiot..." Hisoka muttered before he found himself face to face with a floating toddler.

"Oh, good, you're both here," Koenma said, the pacifier on his mouth.

Hisoka smacked Tsuzuki upside his head to keep him from laughing at Koenma's teeny toddler stature. He sure did make an ass out of himself as usual... "Mr. Koenma," Hisoka said.

Inside the room, the new girls were getting introduced to everyone. Andrea thought it was kind of nice to have other females around. When her eyes moved to the opening door, she saw Koenma with two more men. Great...she thought before blinking as he spoke.

"Everyone, we have these two from the Judgment Bureau," Koenma said, looking at the pair.

The younger of the two had blond hair, green eyes and a uninterested expression. If Andrea didn't know any better, she'd have sworn he was like Hiei a bit. Just a bit. The other man, Andrea saw, was different. He wore a dark blue suit with a dark gray trench coat, but his eyes caught her attention... which was weird. His eyes were purple, something she hadn't seen before. She wasn't put off by it, but it sure was strange.

The tallest of the pair, obviously, was the one smiling and waving. His partner simply looked at every one. "I'm Hisoka," he said, his voice even and calm. "And this waving moron behind me is Tsuzuki."

Tsuzuki gave Hisoka a pout. "Aww... you're so mean..." His voice sounded nearly like a child.

"Stop being an idiot," Hisoka told him.

The two new girls smiled gently while Andrea held a hand over her mouth to hide her own. She hadn't heard about the case yet, but the pair certainly was interesting.

"Hey, Toddler Breath... how about telling us what the hell we're doing here before you start using a walker?" Yusuke asked while Andrea shook her head.

"Welcome to the Fun House," Andrea said, sarcastically rolling her eyes. "These are Viola and Chloe," she started as the two new girls bowed gently at the pair. "Then there's Hiei up against the wall. He doesn't talk much."

"Sounds like someone I know..." Tsuzuki started before he felt a smack upside his head.

Hisoka gave him a look that made Tsuzuki gulp.

Andrea raised an eyebrow, wondering if they were really like that. "Okay... there's the smart one, Kurama..." The redhead nodded his head. "And those two are Yusuke and Kuwabara. They argue like a married couple."

"Not that I'd marry that dumbass," Yusuke said.

"Who'd marry you?" Kuwabara retorted back at him.

"And this is Andrea," Viola said, nodding to the reddish-haired girl that had been talking.

Andrea nodded her head. "Yo," she answered, waving gently.

After the introductions were made, Hisoka explained, "As Koenma has explained, we are Guardians of Death. Our job is to bring the souls that stick around back with us."

"Souls?" Chloe asked, tilting her head. What was he talking about?

Kurama nodded his head. "What I believe he means is, they are to find the souls of those that have departed but are still here." He looked at Hisoka. "Am I correct?"

Hisoka nodded his head. Kurama was obviously wise beyond his years, and he felt an aged wisdom in the redhead and thought that he must be the sensible one in the group.

Andrea sat down on the arm of a chair, crossing her jean-clad legs. "Sure," she said, pinching the bridge of her nose. Guardians of Death, souls... it was starting to sound like a bad movie plot.

Tsuzuki blinked and looked at Andrea. She, like the rest of the group, looked rather young to be doing something like this.

"So..."

Tsuzuki blinked at the girl who now stood up.

"So, let me know if I have this right... we're dealing with souls who like staying instead of leaving?" Andrea asked. "And you're going to basically send them on their way?"

Hisoka nodded. Andrea sure caught on quick. "Yes," he answered.

"Uh uh," Kuwabara said, shaking his head. "I'm not dealing with ghosts again."

"Seriously?" Andrea asked, rolling her eyes. "You're the bulkiest out of all of us, and you're scared of a GHOST?"

"Talk to Urameshi," Kuwabara answered, pointing at the brown-eyed male. "Ask him about that Kiss of Life or whatever that is..."

"What?!" Yusuke asked, looking at him. "Oh, don't bring that up again!"

Viola and Chloe laughed as they got what it was, while Andrea stretched her arms over her head.

"There's another part to this," Koenma said. "While they are here, they will need to have somewhere to stay."

Andrea didn't like where this was headed and as she looked at her watch, she inwardly celebrated. "Well, I have to go to work," she said, nodding to the two new girls as she lowered her arms. "Nice meeting you two." She looked at the two Guardians, her eyes staying slightly more on Tsuzuki than they should have, bowing to them. "And good meeting you two." She headed out of the room, her ponytail bobbing behind her.

Tsuzuki would have asked her what she meant except she had already left. She sure was a hard person to keep track of from the looks of it.

"And guess how we're going to do it," Koenma said, snapping Tsuzuki out of his reverie.

The group looked as Koenma held up a handful of straws, and everyone except Hisoka fell over.

"Drawing straws?" Hiei asked. "How is that going to work?"

"Well, you don't have to participate, Hiei," Koenma answered.

Hiei sure was glad for that.

The group, save Hisoka and Tsuzuki, all drew straws until there was one left remaining.

"Oh, that's Andrea's straw," Tsuzuki said before drawing it, looking at the fact that it was indeed the shortest.

"The two shortest have to house one of them," Koenma explained.

The group then looked at their straws. "So that leaves Kurama and... where's the last one?" Yusuke asked.

Tsuzuki held it up. "I think this was Andrea's," he said, looking at the very short straw in his hand. "So, what happens now?"

Koenma floated up to the two Guardians. "That means you get to stay with Kurama and Andrea," he said. "Hisoka, you might want to stay with Kurama."

And then it was decided: Hisoka would stay with Kurama, which was a relief to the blond. Tsuzuki, though... had to stay with Andrea. And he didn't know where the girl lived or even where she worked. And while he was ecstatic, he was concerned. She hadn't said much since meeting them.

"Oh, Tsuzuki's got to room with Andrea, huh? Bum rap," Yusuke said. "She's a real bitch."

Kurama looked at Yusuke. "No, she isn't," he answered.

"What do you call her smacking me upside the head?"

"Cleaning your head out," Kuwabara answered.

"I'll clean your head out!" Yusuke said and promptly started fighting Kuwabara, punching him with the carrot-haired boy punching back.

Kurama shook his head at the now arguing pair. Such children...

If Tsuzuki thought that it would be easy to get near Andrea, he had no idea on what he was getting himself into. And he wasn't sure how to approach it, either. Simply follow her? No, he didn't want to seem like a stalker. But then he didn't know where she lived and what time she'd get off work.

"She lives in a section of town near Downtown," Kurama answered him before Tsuzuki had a chance to ask. "Andrea lives on the third floor and, as a warning, she doesn't like being startled. As far as where she works, she never talks about it."

"Oh, she's a teenage girl," Tsuzuki said, smiling sheepishly. "How bad could it be?"

Hisoka wasn't sure if he should tell him just HOW bad it could be. _Might as well let him find out for himself_, he thought.

* * *

(Okay, so that's my first chapter. Yeah... I'm trying to get back into fanfic writing again, and some of the chapters might be late cause of tests coming up for me. Psychology and Accounting... aren't they fun?)


	2. Not Alone

Not Alone  
By: Cece Williams

(Disclaimer: I don't own Yami no Matusei or Yu Yu Hakusho... do I really have to say it every chapter? Really...)

* * *

Several hours had gone by, and Andrea just left her workplace, bowing to her manager. "I'll be back here Monday," she said before she straightened back up to her full height. "You have a good night."

Her manager, an elderly Japanese man in his 70s with thinning black hair and black eyes, bowed before he straightened himself back as well. "All right, Andrea," he said. "Just please be careful walking home."

"Sure," she answered before waving and walking across the bridge. Andrea looked at her cell phone and saw a missed call from Kurama. She rolled her eyes as she dialed his number and listened only a second before she heard his calm voice.

"Andrea?" Kurama said, sitting at his desk in his room at home.

"Yeah," she answered, turning a corner and walking towards her apartment building, a quarter of a mile away. "So, what was so important that you had to call me?"

"You left before Koenma could explain what was going on..."

"Kurama, I don't know how I can explain it any better," Andrea said. "I left because I have to work. You know, to pay bills and all that cause I live alone... I don't have time to listen to some toddler play a child's game..."

"Maybe I can explain it better," another calm voice said over the line.

Andrea stopped in her tracks. "Wait a minute..."

"Koenma simply had everyone, with the exception of Hiei, Tsuzuki, and myself, draw straws to see who would stay at whose residence," the voice answered. "Kurama drew me, which is why I'm staying there."

"Hisoka? You're staying with Kurama?" Andrea asked. Maybe it was a good thing. "In that case, I'm glad for that."

"Yes, well... it's about who's staying with you," Hisoka answered.

Andrea started back walking again, shaking her head before she heard a noise and stopped again. "I'll figure it out," she said before she hung up and held her hand behind her back. By now, Andrea's attention was not on who Hisoka was talking about. The same noise got closer, and her hand tightened around her weapon as she pulled her hand back, her sapphire eyes scanning the night before walking again. _Someone's following me_, she thought to herself.

Now Andrea knew she wasn't alone. She darted into an alley, where the noise got louder. She was close, and then she saw it, a pair of demons up to no good. Tonight sure was getting interesting... "Hey!" she said. "Isn't it bedtime for you losers?"

One of the demons, a purple one with a horn on his head, smiled at the teenager. "Oh, lookie here... a little girl all by herself..."

"Yeah... she'll make a nice dinner..." Another demon, this one dark blue with long claws, replied.

* * *

Meanwhile, Tsuzuki had been walking the streets, trying to find Andrea's apartment. He heard growling and started running before he stopped at seeing a blue light from the alleyway. Fearing the worst, he ran faster before he stopped just inside the alley, his purple eyes wide.

Both demons, now dead, lay on the ground like rag dolls with the stuffing ripped out. The lone figure stood, back to him and holding what looked to be a fan in a slender hand. As the hand moved, the fan went back to its unopened state.

Tsuzuki would have taken a step forward except...

"How much did you see?"

Now the voice was familiar. "Andrea?" he asked, stepping closer and watching the teenage girl turn around, her ponytail blowing gently in the breeze.

"You were following me." Andrea blinked up at the amethyst-eyed man. "Weren't you?" She flipped her fan open again as she awaited his answer.

"It's uncommon to see a teenage girl like you out here by yourself," he answered.

"It's the 21st century," Andrea answered, closing her fan once again. "Teenage girls walk home alone all the time." As she stepped closer, her blue eyes blinked up at him before she walked past him, her hair bobbing behind her and hitting her back with each step. "Shouldn't you be waiting for your roommate?"

"That's just it," Tsuzuki answered. "It's you."

Andrea stopped in her tracks and turned around again, her sapphire blue eyes filled with confusion. "What?"

"Koenma had everyone drawing straws, and well... yours was the shortest, so..."

Andrea let out a deep breath of exasperation. "Leave it to Koenma to come up with an asinine way to pick roommates..."

"It was a little crazy, actually."

"Yeah," Andrea said gently. She blinked up at Tsuzuki, who had matched her step for step. She didn't want to know if he was a stalker or just being a worrisome guy. "You're not going to stop until I tell you that you can walk me home, right?"

"That's the idea," he answered.

Andrea sighed. He'd likely follow her anyway. "All right, fine," she replied. "Come on."

Tsuzuki followed Andrea out of the alley and down the sidewalk, the silence between them as thick as fudge batter. _She looks kind of young to be doing something like this_, he thought. _Something so dangerous as a Spirit Detective... why would she do something like this, I wonder._

Andrea wasn't sure what to think herself. A roommate? That was something she never expected. She shook the thought out of her head as she led him to an apartment building and, after climbing three flights of stairs, reaching the door. "All right, we're here."

Tsuzuki noticed something green sparking from her chest from the overhead light, but before he could ask her what it was, he saw the door open and the girl disappear inside before she turned the light on. He peered inside, seeing a couch and a loveseat in the living room and a café table tucked into a corner. The walls were simple, leaving no real hint as to who Andrea was, what she liked, what she didn't like... until he saw a small framed picture on the end table.

After he took his shoes off, he walked over and picked it up gently. The picture had a man of nearly thirty with dark brown hair and deep blue eyes, while the woman was in her late twenties with light brown hair and brown eyes. The smiling little girl couldn't have looked older than seven, but her blue eyes and reddish-brown hair was unmistakable. Andrea as a child... so young, innocent in the ways of the world...

"It's not much to look at, but it's home," Andrea said, walking with her socks and slippers on into the living room.

He then set the frame down gently and noticed a few pictures on the wall. One had a sunset, the second had a sunrise, and the last had cherry blossoms against a red pagoda. It made the living room somewhat peaceful. "It's nice," he said gently.

"Don't flatter me," Andrea said from the kitchen as she stretched her arms over her head.

"I'm just saying that I like the one with the pagoda," he said. "And the cherry blossoms. It makes the room look so calm..."

"While the outside world is like hell," Andrea said, peeling off her jacket, trying not to wince from her arm as she went back into the living room to sit on the loveseat Indian style. "Yusuke told you I was a bitch, huh?"

"You don't look like one," he answered, sitting on the couch. "It's a nice place."

"Works for a single girl."

"So, how old are you?"

"Seventeen."

Tsuzuki blinked. No wonder... "Seventeen? That's kind of young to be fighting demons and things."

"Yeah, well, there's a lot of things I'm too young for," Andrea said, stretching her arms up again. "Thankfully, I have no intention of doing those for a long time." She moved her arms down after taking a deep breath. "Okay, since we're dealing with ages here... how old are you?"

"Twenty six," he answered.

"You do know that I'm nine years younger than you?"

"More than that."

"W-What?" Andrea asked, blinking up at him.

"I'm sure Koenma told you that I'm a Guardian of Death."

"Among other things..." Andrea took out one of her fans and opened it. "He probably told you I was a total pain in his ass."

"Not really..." Tsuzuki saw the top of the fan Andrea had in her hand give out a blue light and stick up at the ribs and outer cover of the fan three inches to look like blades. A bladed fan? "That was the light I saw..."

"It's just Spirit Energy," Andrea explained as she pulled her fan closed and the blue light faded. "They're dangerous enough already, but it kind of makes it a little... tougher."

"He told me that you had good aim..."

"I do," she answered as she held the closed fan in her hand. "This actually brings me to the ground rules of staying here. Number one; don't get any ideas about peeking at me in the bathroom like a pervert. I won't miss on you. Number two; that also goes for watching me change. Number three..." Andrea blinked up at Tsuzuki, sapphire meeting amethyst. "I don't take bull very well, so don't think of lying to me."

"I can understand," he said. "Those three won't happen."

"Good," Andrea said, blinking at a pattering noise and looking around. "Looks like we got in just in time; it's raining."

Tsuzuki heard what Andrea was talking about before he looked at the window. Raindrops slowly pelted the windows as the sky got darker and darker until it was black as night.

"It's only a one bedroom apartment," Andrea explained. "So there are not a lot of places that you could sleep."

"I could sleep on the couch..."

_Wow... a gentleman_, Andrea thought, trying to keep from laughing. _I hadn't even listed WHERE he could sleep, and he already wants the couch?_

"Mmm... you know..." Andrea got up from the couch and went to a small closet and opened it, pulling down and holding a folded blanket in her arms. "I've forgiven you for following me." She walked over and set the blanket on the other side of the couch.

"Could I tell you something?"

"Sure." Andrea blinked over at him.

"I think Yusuke's wrong."

Andrea finally let a small smile cross her lips. "Good to know," she answered. "Now could I ask you a question?"

"It's only fair."

Andrea sat down on the arm of the couch before she looked at the end table and moved the picture back the way it was. She had a feeling he looked at the picture of her and her parents. "Do you always like to know everything about everyone you meet?"

"It does seem a little harsh that your parents would let you live alone..."

"They're dead." The answer came out faster than she had intended.

"I'm sorry to hear that..."

"It's nothing. Don't worry about it," Andrea answered, shaking her head as she stood back up. "I'm going to head in for the night." She wanted to get away before she'd really have to explain the two words.

"All right," he said, watching Andrea's figure retreat to her bedroom. "Good night."

"Night," Andrea said from the doorway. "If you need another blanket, it's in the closet."

"Okay."

Then her figure disappeared into the dark bedroom. Andrea took the scrunchie out of her hair and set it on the nightstand before she changed into a pair of long dark blue pajamas and hopped into bed. She stretched her arms over her head back before she brought them back down and closed her eyes. _A new case, a new roommate... things just can't get any worse_, she thought as she fell asleep.

... But they would.

Several hours later, there was a tapping on the windows. Then the tapping became something that sounded very unfamiliar. Tsuzuki heard the tapping and looked at the window, the tapping noise nothing like the rain that had fallen earlier that night. He stood up from the couch, rubbed his eyes and heard a cracking noise from Andrea's bedroom. As he looked through the window, he saw balls of ice fall from the sky. "Hail?" he asked himself before he blinked at another cracking noise from the bedroom. He looked at the microwave clock, which read 3:55AM.

He turned on the television and turned it down low enough for him to hear but not loud enough to wake Andrea. What he heard confirmed that bad feeling in his stomach.

"We have this just in," a female reporter in her early twenties said, looking up from the paper she had just been handed. "We have reports from Shinjuku that there has been some damage from hail. We caution people to stay away from windows and to move to the center of the room or in a room that has no windows..."

Tsuzuki turned on his heel and walked to Andrea's bedroom and peered in at Andrea's sleeping form, most of her slender frame and her hair buried under a blanket while her face looked almost serene. She must have been exhausted from work, he thought before he looked up at the window near the head of her bed. There was a crack on the window pane, and as the hail kept hitting the window, the crack got bigger and bigger.

He wasn't sure whether he should simply wake her or just simply snatch her out of her bed and bring her into the living room to somewhere safe. Either way, he wasn't going to like the outcome...

* * *

(Well, there's Chapter 2 with a little bit of a cliffhanger. It's been so long since I've written one of these, so I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to drop me a review. The rest of the chapters may be either short or long, depending on the time I have in between getting my homework done.)


	3. Nighttime with Grapes

Nighttime with Grapes  
By: Cece Williams

(Disclaimer: I don't own... *sighs* Do I have to? *gets a mean stare and gulps* Okay, um... I do NOT own Yami no Matsuei or Yu Yu Hakusho.)

* * *

Tsuzuki had a choice, either to simply shake Andrea awake or to simply pull her out of bed before the window broke. The mere thought of a ball of ice hitting her head while she slept was enough for him. He took a deep breath and grabbed the sleeping girl into his arms, along with the blanket over her.

That turned out to be the worst decision of the two. Andrea's eyes snapped open as she felt herself being pulled out of bed. "W-What the hell?!" she nearly screamed, starting to hit him with closed fists and tried to kick out at him before she looked at the window, which broke in two corners before the bottom pane broke completely from a hailstone.

Before there was an argument, he had carried her into the living room. Thankfully, the window there wasn't damaged. It looked to be the safest room in the apartment, while he didn't look safe himself. The girl in his arms was still slapping at him.

"Put me down!" Andrea hissed at him before she felt herself being lowered onto the loveseat. She pursed her lips together and crossed her arms.

"You were lucky that hailstone didn't hit your head," he told her.

"What hailstone?" Andrea's eyes looked over to the television, where the weather report was continuing.

"Once again, we urge people to stay away from windows and move to the center of the room," the reporter said. "This looks like a bad hailstorm, everyone. Please be safe."

Andrea blinked at the screen, realization setting into her still-tired face. "Oh, my God... I-I don't know w-what to say..."

Tsuzuki sat down on the loveseat next to her. "I didn't mean to startle you," he said after he had taken a deep breath. "When I saw your window, it looked like it would break anytime." He blinked down at her. "Do you have anything that could cover a window?"

Andrea blinked. "I-I think so," she answered. "There's a roll of garbage bags in a drawer and some duct tape somewhere..." She stood up, holding onto the counter as she walked into the kitchen. She felt something move past her and blinked.

Tsuzuki had moved past her and found the items before he met Andrea's tired gaze. "I'll take care of the window," he told her. "You just lay down on the loveseat." At that, he walked past her.

Andrea shook her head before she followed him. "No, I'm going with you," she answered. Not that she didn't trust him, but that she had to watch him. Just for sanity's sake.

"All right," Tsuzuki conceded. "But you're staying at the door." He watched her nod while he turned on the light to the room and started to use the garbage bags and the tape to tape up the window. He blinked just as a shard of the glass cut into his hand but finished the window. "All right, it's done..." This time, when he turned back, he saw her eyes wide open.

Andrea saw the cut on his hand and held a hand to her mouth that had dropped open in shock. Oh, great, the first night someone stayed with her and he got hurt...

"Andrea, it's all right, really," he consoled her as he got closer. He showed her his hand, which had started to heal itself.

Andrea's hand fell from her still wide-open mouth and her eyes widened before she sank to her knees. "W-What... w-what the hell?"

The cut on Tsuzuki's hand had healed itself in a matter of half a minute. He knelt down in front of her and tried to meet her eyes, but they were looking at the floor.

"N-Not even Kurama can heal t-that fast..."

He heard the stunned tone in her voice before he gently pulled her to her feet, his face softening but still worried about her. "Come on," he said, turning off the light and leading her back into the living room.

Andrea plopped down on the loveseat while Tsuzuki sat down on the couch. "H-How did you..." Andrea asked, blinking up at him.

"I'm able to heal from things like that quickly as a Guardian of Death," Tsuzuki explained. "You mentioned earlier tonight about me being nine years older than you." He watched her nod. "The truth is... I'm 112. 26 living years."

"S-So you've been a Guardian of Death for..."

"Eighty-six years," he finished. "I've been at this job longer than your parents had been alive."

Andrea blinked, that word cutting into her like a knife. "C-Can we not talk about my parents?" she asked as she got up and went into the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator and blinked at some of her long auburn hair cascading over her shoulder. "I-It's not up..." Shaking her head, she grabbed a bag of grapes. She had read somewhere that grapes would cool someone down enough to lull them back to sleep. She set the grapes on the counter before she closed the door and went to her bedroom.

Tsuzuki took a deep breath. _What was it about mentioning her parents that shut her off like that? Did they hurt her? Abuse her? Or was it their deaths alone that made Andrea like that? She won't tell me_, he thought to himself. He blinked, seeing Andrea come back to the living room with a bowl in her hand and her hair up in a ponytail. "I could have gotten that," he said.

"Don't worry about it," Andrea answered, sitting down on the loveseat and setting the bowl down on the coffee table. She pulled a small bunch of grapes off the larger bunch and leaned back on the loveseat. "Do you like scaring teenage girls like that?"

"I'd hardly call that scaring you," Tsuzuki answered, taking a few himself.

"True," Andrea answered, popping a grape into her mouth. The juice was cooling her insides already. "Being a Spirit Detective, you see some really messed up stuff."

"How long have you been that?"

"Since I was fourteen," Andrea answered, plucking off another grape.

"That's still quite young for that kind of work," Tsuzuki said gently before eating a grape. Now he felt better; the grape was easing a lot of worry he had for that girl in the loveseat. At least she wasn't injured.

Andrea gave him a look. "I'm seventeen, Tsuzuki, not ten," she said before she ate another grape.

"I know," he answered, eating another grape. Tsuzuki looked at the auburn haired girl on the loveseat, a slight pout on his face. "I didn't mean to upset you..."

"About what?"

"When I mentioned your parents, you looked upset. I didn't mean to..."

"Look, it's done and over with," Andrea answered. "I simply don't want to talk about it, all right?"

"Fair enough," he replied, making a mental note to find out why later. "But if you want to, you can tell me, all right?"

"Sure," she answered, eating another grape. After chewing it, her mind wandered. Why did he want to know? Was Tsuzuki that curious or just plain annoying?

Tsuzuki wondered what it was that she didn't want to talk about. Maybe she simply wasn't ready to talk about it. Now he just had to change the subject. "Y-You know..."

Andrea blinked up at him.

"That little guy was your boss?"

"Which little guy? There's Hiei and there's Koenma."

"Koenma... that's your boss?"

Andrea snickered into her hand, the first time that night. "Yeah, that little pipsqueak is my boss," she answered. "He sucks a pacifier, wears a diaper and looks like a baby."

Finally, he broke the ice. "Really? That little baby is your boss?"

"Yeah," Andrea answered.

"How did you take it?"

"Me?" Andrea watched Tsuzuki nod his head. "I took it well in front of everyone. Then I laughed my ass off at home. What's yours like?"

"Oh, he's kind of old and grumpy..."

Andrea shook her head. Oh, boy...

"Well, one of them is," Tsuzuki continued. "Another's not really happy cause of something I did..."

"What? Did you blow up the White House or something?"

"No, it's uh..." He rubbed his head sheepishly and laughed nervously.

How bad could it possibly be?

"It was a library," he finally answered.

Andrea raised an eyebrow. He couldn't be serious, right? "What?"

"I kind of blew up the library at the Judgment Bureau... I-I'm still having to pay for that..."

"I'm not sure if I want to know how that's possible..." Andrea blinked at the man on the couch, her vision now blurred like crazy. He acted like a moron but blew up a library? Was there more to him than just Tsuzuki being a doofus? Maybe it was the grapes and how it made her appear more tired than she originally thought...

"Maybe you should get some..." Tsuzuki blinked over to the loveseat, which now had Andrea laying on it with her eyes closed, her ponytail over her shoulder with her arm hanging over the side. She had fallen asleep. _She must have been exhausted_, he thought as he stood up and pulled the blanket back over her shoulders. _It's just crazy how a teenage girl has to work so hard like this instead of simply taking it easy._

Andrea simply didn't hear a word or even feel the blanket on her shoulders, blissfully unaware to what was going on.

He didn't know why he kept watching her for an extra five minutes while finishing off the grapes. Maybe while she slept, she looked different than when she was awake, without a care or thought in her mind. Maybe it was because of her work. Maybe it was both. "Good night, Andrea," he said before he walked to the couch and lay down at an angle so he could watch her. Purely just in case the hail was to break that window as well. Just in case. Taking a deep breath, Tsuzuki fell asleep as well; unconsciously moving his head to face Andrea's sleeping form.

* * *

(Sorry if this chapter's a little short. My homework in college is piling up and I have to buckle down and get it done. If you're wondering why Andrea's got an attitude, it'll be explained in later chapters. After this chapter, things should go a little bit faster. See you later!)


	4. Called In

Called In  
By: Cece Williams

(Disclaimer: I do not own Yami no Matsuei or Yu Yu Hakusho. I can't stress that enough.)

* * *

Andrea sat up on the loveseat quietly, rubbing her eyes. "W-What time is it?" she asked to herself before she looked at her watch. 8:30AM. She heard a faint ringing and quietly but quickly went into her bedroom to find her cell phone and answered it. "Hello?" she asked in Japanese.

"Andrea, I didn't mean to wake you," her manager's voice came onto the other end.

"N-No, Mr. Uchiwara," Andrea answered. "I was awake. What's wrong?"

"One of the girls is going to be running late, Andrea," he answered. "I wouldn't call you, but since you wanted some more hours..."

"Sure," she answered. "I'll get dressed and be there in like thirty minutes."

"Thank you so much," Mr. Uchiwara answered.

"It's not a problem. I'll see you then," Andrea said and after exchanging goodbyes, she hung up. Now she was in a pickle. How to sneak out without Tsuzuki waking up. She'd barely had known him a day and didn't know what he was like, aside that he was a pain in the ass. After changing into a pair of jeans with a lavender shirt, she peered into the living room at the man on the couch while pulling her hair up in a ponytail.

Tsuzuki was still asleep, snuggling the pillow on the couch as if it was made of marshmallows. He looked like nothing would wake him, short of an explosion.

Andrea shook her head. He was something else... She looked back at the bedroom window and blinked. _Did he just save me last night?_ Andrea thought to herself. Shaking her head again, she slipped her cell phone into her pocketbook as she picked it up and walked quietly to the door. She quietly opened the door and left the apartment, locking it behind her. Taking a deep breath, she headed down the stairs before heading to her work.

* * *

Almost an hour later, Andrea was working and manning the phones in Japanese. She wore a blue yukata with small sakura blossoms all around with a tied pink belt around her waist. In truth, she spoke it almost like she was a native. Bilingualism was a big commodity in the workforce, and to speak Japanese and English was readily needed. The phone rang again and Andrea answered it. "Thank you for calling Ukai Toriyama. Would you like to make a reservation?" she asked. She penned down the reservation and after getting their confirmation, she thanked them and hung up the phone.

"Hey, Andrea."

Andrea looked up and saw a teenage girl with jet black hair and doe like brown eyes in a maroon yukata with large sakura flowers all over with a tied pink belt around her waist. "Hey, Mia," she answered. "Miyuki's here?"

"Nope," Mia answered, sitting next to the auburn-haired girl. "There's this really cute guy outside."

"That's your department, not mine," Andrea answered.

"Well, yeah," Mia admitted. "But this guy's like your age."

"My age?" Andrea echoed. "You must have been watching too many romance movies at night again..."

"No, I'm serious, Andrea!" Mia said, grabbing the girl's arm. "He's really cute. And he wanted to see you."

Andrea sighed. "What are you talking about?"

"Well... he said that he wanted to see you about something important."

Andrea blinked. Who in the hell knew where she worked at? Koenma wouldn't dare appear as a toddler, Hisoka was at Kurama's house, and Tsuzuki... well... nothing short of an explosion would wake him. At least, she hoped so. "What does he look like?"

"Well..." Mia's eyes gave off a dreamy look. "He's got the most gorgeous green eyes... they're almost like emeralds... Oh, and his hair is so nice. It's so long and red..."

At that, Andrea stood up almost too fast, the chair hitting the floor behind her. Kurama? What was he doing here?

"Andrea, what's wrong?" Mia asked. "Did you see a spider?"

"No," Andrea answered. "I'll talk to him for a minute." She walked over to the door and stepped down to put on a pair of geta sandals. Taking a deep breath, she walked out of the restaurant and sure enough, Kurama stood against the barricade.

"I didn't expect to see you go to work," his calm alto voice spoke.

"It's called getting called in," Andrea answered. "When you go to work, you'll understand."

The silence between them was getting heavy.

"What are you doing here?" Andrea broke it almost as fast as the silence had started, her blue eyes looking out at the water.

"I wanted to make sure you were all right..."

"I told you, I'm fine," she said, not even looking at him. The words hadn't meant to come out almost like venom.

"I know that," Kurama answered, looking out to the water himself. "You weren't injured from the hailstorm last night, were you?"

"No."

"Oh, that's good to hear," Kurama answered. He took a deep breath. "Listen... about Demon World..."

"I don't want to talk about it."

Kurama looked down at the auburn-haired girl. "Andrea..."

"I don't want to talk about it," she repeated. "I don't. I got to get back to work." Andrea turned on her heel and started to walk back to the restaurant.

"Andrea, I..." Before Kurama could finish, Andrea was already walking back. It seemed like she wasn't ready to talk about it. And with him knowing the reason, he took a deep breath just as she had turned around. "You have a good day, all right?"

Andrea nodded before she took off her sandals and stepped up into the restaurant. As she picked up her chair and sat down, she saw Kurama walk away from the restaurant with his usual stride. Why would she want to talk to him after what happened?

"Hey, you're just letting that hot thing walk away?" Mia asked as Andrea took the pen in her hand.

"He's not taken," Andrea answered, trying to get her mind focused back on the work at hand.

"Oh, come on, Andrea... he's cute. Why don't you give him a chance?"

"I did. A long time ago."

"What happened?"

"Nothing. I got over it and moved on."

"How could nothing happen? Like, you two didn't kiss or anything?"

"Just drop it, Mia," Andrea answered.

Mia pouted before she pulled on her happy face and went to seat a couple of cute businessmen. A little old for her, but Mia wasn't complaining.

Andrea took a deep breath before pulling on her usual demeanor. She looked up in time to see Mia with the two businessmen before she looked down at her work and sighed. She did want something like that. Really. It was just... hard for her to get close to someone. _Can't do anything about it now. Better get back to work_, she thought to herself as she finished her shift.

* * *

Meanwhile, in Andrea's apartment, the sunlight teased Tsuzuki's eyes before he woke up. He sat up on the couch and stretched. "Mmm... good morning..." He looked over and saw the loveseat empty. He looked at his watch. 13:35.

"Maybe she's in her bedroom," he said before walking to the bedroom and peered in. No sign of Andrea anywhere. He then looked in the bathroom, half-expecting to hear a scream and have something thrown in his face. Nothing, not even a clue as to where she went.

Panic spread through his veins like a wildfire. Where was Andrea? She couldn't have simply disappeared. And she wasn't in the kitchen or anywhere in the apartment. He was about to check the door before he heard a click and saw it open.

Andrea opened the door and walked in the apartment but didn't get far. She looked up and was met with a pair of worried amethyst eyes in return. She flinched as she saw the door close behind her.

"Andrea, I was worried about you..."

"Don't be," Andrea answered. "I'm fine."

She tried to walk past him but felt her wrist being held and her back being pressed against the back of the couch. He was now merely a foot away from her, holding her wrist in his hand.

"I can see that," he answered, the worried look in his eyes not leaving.

"What, I'm supposed to leave you a note or something?" Andrea asked him.

"That would work," Tsuzuki answered.

Andrea rolled her eyes. "You're not my father."

"So it's a crime to worry about you?"

"I came back, didn't I?"

"What if you didn't?"

Andrea looked up at him. "What are you talking about?"

"What if you were hurt? Or worse?"

Now she knew he had a point. But Andrea wouldn't admit it, at least not to him. She felt her wrist being let go.

"Andrea, I'm sorry..."

Andrea blinked up at him. "What?"

"I just can't help but be overprotective about someone. I'm even overprotective with Hisoka, and he's my partner." Apologetic amethyst eyes met confused sapphire blue ones. "And I know you can take care of yourself..."

"It's all right," Andrea answered. "I guess you can't help being like that."

"Nope."

Andrea shook her head. Yeah, he was definitely something else... definitely more than a pain in the ass. "You're something else..." she mumbled.

* * *

(AN: Since I know someone will likely ask me about what a yukata is, it's a summertime version of a kimono. In the fall and winter months, you'll see actual kimonos. I promise you.)

(Other than that, I'll try to write more now that I'm on break for the July 4th week. I'll try to, if the homework doesn't plow me down more.)


	5. Beginning of Hell

Beginning of Hell  
By: Cece Williams

(Disclaimer: I do not own Yami no Matsuei or Yu Yu Hakusho.)

* * *

A few weeks passed without much incident. Koenma had given them nothing to go on, so they had to do this on their own.

At Meiou Academy, the bells rang for the end of the class day. "Please make your way home, and we'll see you in the morning," the PA system sounded.

Viola put her books into her bag. "I can't believe there's so much homework," she complained.

"You just want to spend time with Shuichi, don't you?" Chloe teased, careful to use Kurama's human name in public.

Viola blushed. "Well... h-he is rather cute," she admitted. "But we're in the middle of a mission, and I can't do that."

Chloe shook her head. "You're no fun," she pouted.

"Come on, we better go find him," Viola said as the two left the classroom.

Within minutes, they headed down to the front gate of the school, where Kurama was waiting.

"Sorry we're late," Chloe said. "Viola was daydreaming again."

"I was not!" Viola protested.

Kurama shook his head. Girls... "Well, let's get going," he said.

The threesome walked off of the school grounds, the girls chatting about how they hadn't found anything in the investigation while Kurama stayed silent, keeping his guard up.

Then, he sensed it and stopped himself and the girls in their tracks. The girls sensed it as well. They walked into the alley and were cornered by three demons, two blue and one orange. The orange one had a horn on his head.

"Don't get into things you don't understand," one of the blue demons said.

The orange one smiled at the girls. "Well, well... don't they look good enough to eat?"

"I have dibs on the silver haired one..." The other blue demon said before they lunged at the trio.

The girls took a stance while Kurama simply and calmly pulled a rose out of his long crimson mane. Kurama shook it out in front of them, creating a long, thorny whip. As the demons advanced, Kurama skillfully snapped the whip and sliced the three demons across their shoulders.

Viola looked up at Kurama, unsure whether she should speak or not.

Chloe, though... "That was so freaking cool!" she said.

Kurama calmly turned the whip back into a rose before he put it back into his hair. "Are you two all right?" he asked them as he turned to face them.

Viola's voice finally came back. "Y-Yeah, we're fine," she answered, blushing gently.

"Better than fine," Chloe said. "That was freaking awesome!"

Viola sweatdropped, as did Kurama.

Kurama walked up to the slayed demons and looked at one of their necks. "Take a look at this," he said.

The girls walked over to where Kurama stood. Amidst the blood from the demons, their bodies were sliced in half from their shoulders.

"There's a tattoo of some sort on their necks," Kurama said, pointing at one of the necks.

Viola looked at one of the necks. There was kanji for the word "Pride" on its neck.

Chloe took out her cell phone and snapped a picture of another of the demons, which had "Envy" tattooed on its neck. "Oh, this is creepy."

Kurama looked at the one he was next to. "This one has 'Sloth' written on it," he said.

"What could all that mean?" Viola asked as Chloe came by and snapped a picture of each of the demons' necks.

"We should talk to Koenma,"Kurama answered.

"Pride, Envy, and Sloth all have to do with something," Viola said, looking at Chloe's cell phone.

Kurama looked at the girls. "Let's go." With that, the threesome made their way to Spirit World. Something was NOT right.

* * *

Meanwhile, at Ukai Toriyama, Andrea felt a jolt in her head, making her drop her pen.

"Andrea?" Miyuki asked her. She looked merely twenty with black hair and sweet looking brown eyes. She wore a pink yukata with a crane pattern and a white tied belt around her waist. "What's wrong?"

Andrea blinked, reaching down to get her pen. "Oh, it's nothing," she answered. "I'm fine."

"You had me worried," Miyuki replied. "You just looked like someone kicked you in the face."

Andrea felt another jolt and this time it made her stand up.

"Andrea?"

Andrea looked at her coworker. "Um, could you watch over my stuff here?" she asked. "I need to get some air."

"Yeah, sure," Miyuki answered, sitting down in the chair.

Andrea nodded her head before she went to the front of the restaurant and putting on her geta sandals. She felt something get closer. _A demon_? Andrea thought. _No… I have to keep it away from here. _She stepped out of the restaurant and looked around, her sapphire eyes open and on alert. "It's close," she said to herself as she walked towards a private area of the land near the restaurant. She pulled one of her fans out from under the back of her tied belt and fanned herself, appearing to passersby that it was simply warm outside.

"Nice weather today, isn't it?" Andrea asked one woman.

The woman nodded. "Yes," she answered. "I could do without the heat myself."

Andrea smiled. "All right, you have a good day," she said.

"You, too," the woman said and left with a few of her friends from work.

Andrea plastered the smile on her face as she watched them leave. Once they were out of sight, her expression turned serious. A demon attacking near her workplace… if she didn't stop it soon, she'd risk being discovered at work. And she couldn't have anyone, much less Tsuzuki, know where she worked. And what would be worse than that? Innocent deaths on her conscience.

Once she knew no one would see her, the tips of her fan glowed with her Spirit Energy. "All right, "Andrea said, standing nearly an acre away from the restaurant's rooms themselves. "I don't have time for games."

A demon, this one almost as dark as bark of a Japanese maple tree, stood in front of her, smiling almost like the Cheshire Cat. "Mmmm… a little girl like you all by yourself…"

Andrea stood her ground, holding her fan tighter in her hand. "You're getting on my nerves," she said. "I'm not going to let you hurt anyone here."

The demon laughed, a tattoo of "Wrath" in kanji written on his neck. "You're in no position to give orders, little girl," he said, walking closer to her.

The look in her sapphire eyes blazed at the second "little girl" remark. "No… but do you know what I'm in a position to do?" she asked. Andrea had done this sort of thing for years, and not much scared her anymore.

The demon didn't have much time to react, since Andrea had already slashed at his chest with one of her bladed fans. "You little bitch!" he growled before he ran for her.

Andrea jumped over him and slammed the now-closed fan into his neck, causing the demon to fall to the ground. Andrea's breath hitched in her throat as she pulled out the fan before she tilted her head and looked at the side of his neck. "Wrath?" she asked, pulling out her fans. "What is going on here?" She was thankful that her yukata was a dark blue and that there wasn't any damage on it. Then there would have been problems. "Better get back to work. I'll deal with Koenma later." With that, she left the area and headed back to the restaurant.

* * *

Tsuzuki and Hisoka, in the meantime, were walking down a road, sensing a demonic presence that, by now, had disappeared. The blond looked at his partner, who had stopped at a restaurant. "Tsuzuki, you already ate this morning," he said.

"I know," Tsuzuki answered. "But it smells so good…"

Hisoka smacked his forehead with his palm. Typical Tsuzuki… food over a case. He felt himself being dragged along like a puppy on a leash. Except this time the puppy was dragging Hisoka instead of the other way around.

Hisoka blinked as they reached the main room of the restaurant. There was a girl working there at the reservation table, wearing a dark blue yukata and her long hair pulled up into a ponytail.

"Hello," Miyuki said to the pair, bowing. She was nowhere near the girl Hisoka had been looking at. This one wore a pink yukata with large flowers on it. "Welcome to Ukai Toriyama."

While the older Guardian was mentally thinking of his supposed menu, Hisoka shook his head at him. "Do you know of a young woman about this tall?" he asked Miyuki, gesturing with his hand. "With blue eyes?"

"Oh, you must mean Andrea," Miyuki said, smiling. "Yes, she's here. I'll get her, just wait here."

Tsuzuki blinked at hearing Andrea's name. "She works here?" he asked.

Before Hisoka could answer…

"No, I come here to look good for men so they can ask me out. What do you think?" Andrea asked from the doorway.

The pair looked at the auburn-haired girl as she stepped down and slipped on a pair of geta sandals. Andrea wasn't too thrilled with anyone showing up to her work, obviously. "How did you know where I worked?" she asked, looking up at them.

"We were just in the neighborhood," Tsuzuki said, halfway paying attention, halfway stunned from the change in attire. Andrea was never known for wearing anything so traditional.

Andrea held a hand to her face. Oh, boy… he sure was as tenacious as Hisoka had warned her. "All right," she said. "I'll find us a room to talk in."

Mia and Miyuki looked at the trio walking off.

"Wow… I didn't know Andrea had two boyfriends…" Mia said quietly.

"Ooooh, the taller one is so cute," Miyuki answered.

"I'd like to take the blond one off her hands for her," Mia whispered.

"Mia, you already have a boyfriend."

"Well… what's another harmless crush?" Mia said while Miyuki practically dragged her back inside the restaurant.

* * *

The duo followed Andrea down a path, walking over a bridge with brightly colored fish in the water below. Hisoka walked and looked around. It looked rather nice and peaceful; it was somewhere that almost didn't suit Andrea at all. The Japanese maples were beautiful, the leaves almost as green as his eyes. Tsuzuki, though… was impressed. It looked almost like out of a history book. So much nature and the water wheel made him think of the days of old… now he wanted to stay here.

"All right, guys," Andrea said, leading them inside the room before shutting the door. The trio took off their shoes and stepped up before they sat at the table, the Guardians on one side and Andrea on the other. "What is this about? Really?"

"Nothing gets past you, does it, Andrea?" Tsuzuki asked her.

"When you've been at this a long time, you know it's more than a simple social call," Andrea answered, crossing her arms against her chest.

Hisoka sat up straight, his arms crossed over his chest. "It's not," he answered. "It's about that demon you tended to."

"How did you know that?" Andrea asked him.

"Your hair's slightly disheveled, Andrea," Hisoka answered, watching Andrea blink at him. "With your likely line of work, your hair wouldn't be messed up to that point."

"So, you're a mind reader," Andrea said, fixing her ponytail.

"Empath," Hisoka replied.

Andrea shrugged. "Close enough." She looked at the Guardians intently. "About that… I saw a tattoo on its neck. 'Wrath' in kanji, to be exact."

"Wrath? Could that be from a gang of demons?" Tsuzuki asked her.

"Hell if I know," Andrea answered. "I'd go to Spirit World and ask that toddler, but I can't leave here for another hour or so."

"We'll go if he needs to see us before you get off work," Hisoka offered.

"What if she gets off early?" Tsuzuki asked.

"Not likely," Andrea answered. "And I don't exactly get off whenever I want to for demon ass-kicking." She looked at the two Guardians. "So, what are you two going to do in the meantime?"

"We could stay here," Tsuzuki answered.

"You just ate three hours ago!" Hisoka protested, glaring at his partner.

Andrea shook her head, pinching the bridge of her nose. "For an hour? Seriously?"

"You know he won't leave here," Hisoka said, looking at the now puppy-looking Guardian beside him, who was now looking at the menu. "He told me he doesn't like you walking home alone."

"Well, here's an idea: you can stick around and Tsuzuki can go if Koenma needs to talk to anyone," Andrea said. "That way, I'm not alone here, and if something happens here before Tsuzuki can get back, you can warn me."

Tsuzuki's puppy-like whining stopped her.

"I'll go," Hisoka volunteered. "Just be warned that he'll probably run up a high bill while I'm gone."

"He does, I'm not paying," Andrea answered. "I'll do the ordering. That way, I'll use my discount."

"Sounds good," Hisoka answered, looking at Tsuzuki's puppy tail wagging happily. It sure didn't take much to keep him at bay; that was for sure. "I'll let you know what I've found out." With that, Hisoka teleported out of the room, leaving Andrea alone with the puppified Guardian.

"I got to head back to work," Andrea said. "Just try not to cause any trouble for an hour."

"I won't," Tsuzuki answered.

_I've heard that before,_Andrea thought to herself as she stood up from the table. "Right," she said aloud as she moved to the door. "I'll be back in about an hour. Don't start anything stupid."

"You have my word."

"Good to know," Andrea answered before she opened the door.

"Andrea?"

Andrea looked back at Tsuzuki, who had now looked like normal. "Yeah?"

"You look really pretty in that."

Andrea blinked before she nodded her head. "Thanks," she answered before she walked out of the room and closed the door. She moved her back to the door and took a deep breath before she headed back to the main building.

* * *

Meanwhile, at Spirit World, Hisoka met up with Kurama and the other two girls. Koenma, in his baby form, sat in his chair.

"Hisoka?" Chloe asked. "Where's Andrea?"

"She's working right now; Andrea can't get away at the moment," he answered, his hands in his jeans pockets. "She told me to tell her what's going on for her."

"Just as well," Koenma answered them from his chair. He pressed a button, the screen showing the kanji on one side and the pictures taken by Viola on the other side. "They encountered a trio of demons earlier today."

"We're fine," Viola added.

Hisoka nodded. Like he needed to be told that. He already knew. "And these were on their necks?" he asked.

"Yes," Koenma answered. "There's Pride, Envy, and Sloth on their necks."

"Andrea encountered one herself."

Kurama blinked hearing Andrea's name. A demon at her workplace? "Was she harmed?" he asked him.

"No, Andrea's fine," Hisoka answered. "But the one she saw had Wrath on its neck." He noticed that Kurama had bristled at the mention of her name and blinked. Kurama's emotions about Andrea were complex, to say the least. Something obviously had happened between them. What, he didn't know. Yet.

"So, there's Wrath, Sloth, Envy, and Pride," Chloe said. "Think it's a gang or something?"

"I don't know," Koenma answered. "I'll let you know if I find out anything."

* * *

Meanwhile, at Ukai Toriyama, Tsuzuki heard the door open. "Andrea, you're off already?" he asked as he looked up from the chicken skewer he had in his hand. In front of him at the door was not Andrea. It was Tatsumi. And the secretary was not a happy one.

"Already spending over your limit again?" Tatsumi asked him.

"No, no… Andrea ordered it."

Tatsumi pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose. "So… this Andrea, she's the one you are staying with?"

Tsuzuki nodded.

"And you're eating instead of working?"

"Well, I can't leave her here by herself, Tatsumi," Tsuzuki answered. "A demon was spotted here."

"Andrea handled it on her own," Tatsumi answered. "She can take care of herself." He looked at his former partner. "Tsuzuki, I know you worry about her, but you can't simply interfere with her life like this."

"I'm not interfering," he answered. "Hisoka and I were in the neighborhood and we wanted to see if Andrea was all right."

Tatsumi would have answered, if he didn't hear footsteps heading to the room.

"Tsuzuki? You better have been behaving in there…" The door slid open, and Andrea blinked at the pair. The other male in the room, Andrea hadn't seen before. He had glasses over his deep blue eyes and unlike Tsuzuki, this guy looked put together.

"U-Um, Andrea, this is Tatsumi…" Tsuzuki said from the table.

Tatsumi looked at the aforementioned girl in the room. She looked like a teenager, no more than seventeen, her auburn hair up in a ponytail with a pair of jeans and a three-quarter sleeve smock top. In all aspects, she looked like a teenager on break from school. He silently hoped that Tsuzuki would keep his hands to himself. "It's nice to meet you," he said, bowing to her.

Andrea bowed at him in response. "Same here," she answered before both straightened back to their full heights.

"I was his partner before he partnered with Kurosaki," Tatsumi said.

"Partner?" Andrea asked, raising an eyebrow. "You mean sexually or…"

Both Tsuzuki and Tatsumi looked at each other, their faces paling from the rather sudden question.

"No no! Nothing like that! Really!" Tsuzuki answered, his face now red from embarrassment. He waved his hands in front of him.

"Geez, sorry I asked," Andrea said, raising her eyebrow at the pair. So much more she'd have to learn…

* * *

(Sorry for the long wait. I had exams to deal with. I'll try to write more as I'm off for almost two weeks until the start of Fall Semester. Thanks for reading and being patient with me.)


	6. Intertwined

Intertwined  
By: Cece Williams

(Disclaimer: I do not own Yami no Matsuei or Yu Yu Hakusho. To be fair, I don't want to own them. Though I do own Andrea, Miyuki, and Mia. That I DO own.)

(AN: Okay, this is the start of it getting really interesting. Sorry it's taken this long to get to this point. But there's a good reason for that, I assure you. Okay, happy reading!)

* * *

"Come on, we better head out of here," Andrea said, holding her purse strap in her hand.

With that, the trio left the room and Tatsumi watched as Andrea walked into the main building to pay for the ticket. She was not only underage and a handful, but she could also take care of things financially; that much was for certain. "She can handle her own affairs," he said.

"Yeah, that's Andrea," Tsuzuki answered, leaning his back against the red bridge railing. "She's tougher than she looks. I mean, she literally threatened to castrate me if I tried anything with her."

"I'd take that advice."

Tsuzuki looked at Tatsumi, amethyst eyes wide open.

"I would if I were you, Tsuzuki." Tatsumi gave him a look. "Just how close have you and Andrea gotten?"

Tsuzuki swallowed. He knew that look in Tatsumi's eyes. Lie to him, and he would meet Hell... personally. "We're just roommates," he answered. "She sleeps in her own bed and I have the couch."

"In fact, he volunteered to take the couch," Andrea said, having walked out of the main room and to the pair. "That's as far as it's gotten. If you think something could happen in a few weeks, you need to lay off the caffeine."

Inwardly, Tsuzuki was glad Andrea took up for him. Even more so with her telling the truth.

Tatsumi was glad for that as well. The main priority was the case in question. Now he had to tell Tsuzuki that. But that could wait. "Are you sure it's all right for us to walk you home?" he asked her.

"He won't shut up unless he does," Andrea answered, nodding her head at Tsuzuki, who only blinked at them.

Tatsumi nodded. Another topic to talk with him about, on top of the blatantly obvious. "All right, lead the way," he told her.

Andrea nodded and headed out of the gates of the restaurant, the Guardians behind her.

* * *

After half an hour of changing routes, they arrived at Andrea's apartment. Tatsumi looked around, his eyes looking at the picture of her as a child with her parents. Considering the apartment was clean, except for the couch, he felt relieved. Typical.

Andrea would have asked him something if her cell phone didn't ring. "Great..." she said, finding her cell phone. She flipped it open and answered it. "Hello?" She held up her index finger before she went into her bedroom. "Kurama, this isn't the time..." was the last thing they heard before her bedroom door closed.

"Kurama? Is he her boyfriend?" Tatsumi asked.

"I don't know," Tsuzuki answered. "I've been trying to figure it out for weeks now. She doesn't talk about him much, and when I bring it up, she tells me to change the subject."

"That brings me to my point," Tatsumi replied. "I know you care about her, but you can't get too close to her. The investigation has to come first."

"I know that," Tsuzuki answered, pouting. "But don't you think she's being a little too harsh already?"

"Maybe there is a reason," Tatsumi answered. "But it's not our concern." He thought of a second. "Where's Kurosaki?"

"Oh, he's already at Spirit World," Tsuzuki said. "He went because Andrea was working at the time... and I couldn't very well leave her there alone."

Tatsumi pinched the bridge of his nose under his glasses. Damn it, Tsuzuki was just as stubborn as ever. "She's a Spirit Detective. She can take care of herself."

Andrea had walked out of the bedroom, looking at the pair with her closed cell phone in her hand. "We're needed in Spirit World," she said.

Tatsumi nodded his head. "Well, I'll let you get to work," he answered. "Andrea, it was nice meeting you."

"You too," Andrea answered, nodding her head.

"Tsuzuki, you and Kurosaki both tell me anything that might have to do with the missing souls from the register," the secretary told the only other male in the room.

"We will," Tsuzuki answered.

"And don't forget to bring the boss back a present," the secretary said, making Tsuzuki hit the floor facefirst. Andrea looked at Tatsumi, eyebrow raised. "He knows what I mean," Tatsumi told her before he teleported out of her living room.

Andrea watched the secretary disappear and took a deep breath. "Wow... That's your boss?" she asked him.

"Just one of them," Tsuzuki said, finally getting up from the floor. "There's a few more."

"Oh, okay," Andrea said, blinking. "Well, that was Kurama on the phone. We're needed in Spirit World. It's about that demon I saw earlier."

"All right."

* * *

With that, they both found themselves in Spirit World and walked into the room where the rest of the team had been waiting. Evidently, they were the last ones to arrive. Asking what Tatsumi meant would have to wait.

Andrea looked at the group, thinking to shove the impromptu visit out of her mind for the time being. "So, what's going on?" she asked.

"Geez, where were you two, smooching in an alley?" Yusuke asked her while Kuwabara punched him in the head.

"None of your business," Andrea answered before looking at Koenma. "Okay, so why did Kurama have to call us here?"

"It's about the demons that have been attacking here," Hisoka said from the wall next to Hiei, who stayed perfectly silent. And before Andrea could ask... "There were more than the one you encountered."

"Are you guys okay?" Andrea finally asked.

"Yeah, we're fine," Viola answered. "But what's so odd is that each of them had tattoos on their necks of a different word."

"Which is why I had Kurama call you," Koenma added.

Hisoka noticed that Andrea bristled on the inside around the subject of Kurama. Something was definitely not right, but he knew not to get involved with someone's personal life. Tsuzuki, on the other hand, well... Hisoka knew it was more likely for Tsuzuki to burn down a kitchen due to his terrible cooking than to not interfere with something that personal.

Koenma pushed a button on his desk, making the large monitor turn on, the pictures of the demons that Viola had taken apprearing on the screen. "As Viola has mentioned, these are the demons that had attacked the city earlier today," he said. As he pressed another button, the pictures of the tattoos appeared.

"There's Sloth, Envy and Pride," Kurama stated. "And Hisoka mentioned that Andrea encountered one with Wrath tattooed on his neck." He looked over at Andrea, a look of relief in his eyes. "I'm glad you weren't hurt, Andrea."

"I'm fine," Andrea answered without looking at him.

"In any case, we didn't know what they meant until now," Koenma said, pressing another button on his desk. The screen showed the four kanji symbols they were talking about, with three others.

"So that's.. Lust, Gluttony and..." Viola started.

"Greed," Chloe finished, turning her brown eyes to the screen. "They should be familiar."

"They are," Koenma answered. "They are the Seven Deadly Sins."

"Seven Deadly Sins?" Yusuke asked. "What, are we supposed to get religious?"

"Not exactly," Kurama answered.

Andrea took a deep breath before letting it out slowly. "They're vices that depict humanity's tendency to sin," she answered. "It started way back in Early Christianity and even Catholicism and educates on how these vices lead to sinning. Think of it like seven of the worst things in the world for people to do emotionally, and there they are."

Tsuzuki simply looked to the auburn-haired girl in shock. How could she know something like that? There was definitely something about Andrea that interested him.

"So there's seven?" Chloe asked. "Geez, that's a lot of work."

"But that's not all," Koenma answered.

The group then looked at Koenma.

"These seven sins are personified with being Reaper Demons," Koenma added.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa... Reaper Demons?" Chloe asked.

Kurama then faced the group. "Hiei and I have encountered these beings before," he answered. "The ones we've handled are merely the subordinates of these Reaper Demons. Reaper demons are beings that use souls of the dead as energy. They're difficult to beat."

"Do you think that has anything to do with the souls the Guardians are supposed to handle?" Viola asked.

"It's likely," Hisoka answered, looking at his partner. "We're going back to do some searching on our end."

"Wait, what?" Tsuzuki asked.

"We're going back to the Judgment Bureau, you moron," Hisoka answered. "We have a job to do, too, you know."

Tsuzuki sighed. So much for finding out how Andrea knew that much of the Seven Deadly Sins... or much about her at all...

"All right," Tsuzuki conceded. "We'll be back when we found out something." With that, both Guardians teleported out of the room.

"Koenma sir!" George, the blue ogre, cried, running into the room and standing at the desk next to his boss. "It's about those demons that were stopped!"

"What about them?" Koenma asked him.

"They're back!"

Koenma pushed a couple of buttons, each of the screens showing the demons that had been defeated... brought back to life. "Oh, I was afraid of this..."

"How is that possible?" Viola protested, her silver eyes wide in shock.

Chloe looked at the screen and shook her head. "There's just no way... I-I mean, we saw Kurama kill those bastards."

"And I know I did the same with mine," Andrea said. "How are they coming back to life?"

"I mean, Kurama chopped them like wood and Andrea kicked it in the ass," Yusuke said. "But how in the hell is that possible?"

"That's what I want you to find out," Koenma answered. He looked over at Andrea. "Andrea, you and the girls go find out if there's something about the Sins that needs to be dealt with."

"Yeah, sure," Andrea answered.

Viola looked at the auburn-haired girl. "You're ready?" she asked as Chloe joined her.

"Yeah," Andrea answered. "Come on."

* * *

With that, the threesome went back to Andrea's apartment, where Andrea went to her bedroom. Chloe and Viola looked around the girl's apartment for a minute before they headed into her bedroom, which looked Western with a bed, the closet had its doors open, a dresser and a nightstand with a light green lamp. The dark blue bedding on her bed looked different, but maybe that was the concept for her.

Andrea sat down on the bed, crossing her legs Indian style. She grabbed her laptop and turned it on. There was something about the Seven Deadly Sins that didn't sound right.

Viola looked over at a figurine of a geisha in a lavender kimono with fans in her hands, her body in mid-dance. "This is beautiful," she said, daring to not pick it up.

"Mom bought that for me when I was a kid," Andrea answered, tapping keys on her laptop. "It's called 'Madame Butterfly.' She told me that she was dancing."

Chloe looked at the statue as well. "It is pretty," she said.

"Thanks," Andrea answered, her eyes still on the screen. She typed in "Seven Deadly Sins" and clicked on a link. And she didn't like what she read... "Guys?"

The girls joined her on the bed and looked from either side to the screen where Andrea had pointed. They read silently to themselves what the page said: "According to Dante's _The Divine Comedy_, there is an order of greatness, the order being from lowest to highest."

"It has to be in order?" the three girls asked in unison.

Andrea muttered a curse word under her breath. "We better tell the guys," she said, continuing to look at the screen at the list as Viola made the call to Spirit World.

* * *

Meanwhile, at the Judgment Bureau, Hisoka and Tsuzuki, the latter having to be told by the Gushoshin twins to behave, were in the library, looking through printouts that the twins had printed out about the Seven Deadly Sins. They were to only look up about the souls that had been taken by the Reaper demons, and after threatening to not buy him an eclair did Tsuzuki sigh and look at the papers as well.

Hisoka blinked at several names on the reports of people that had died but their souls hadn't returned. Michiko Fujiwara had been a prostitute, murdered three weeks ago when she was twenty by a john who wanted more than just a good time. Rino Lin was a female alcoholic who died after one too many shots of sake at the bar two months ago. Jiro Tanaka was a stingy heir to a business when he suddenly died of a heart attack a year ago, and he was kind of a loser. What did these three have to do...? Hisoka's concentration was broken after hearing his cell phone vibrating in his pocket.

As Hisoka answered the phone, Tsuzuki's eyes rested on some of the other files. One man's picture stuck out for him, a man from America with very familiar blue eyes and dark brown hair.

"Tsuzuki?"

He looked up at his partner, his concentration completely gone. "Huh? What is it?"

"That was Spirit World," Hisoka answered, putting the phone back in his jeans pocket. "The girls found something."

"Okay, we'd better go huh?"

Hisoka looked down at the file while Tsuzuki's back was turned. The man was from America, looked to be in his late twenties with dark brown hair and blue eyes. He looked like the man could be familiar... somehow. Now that he thought about it, Andrea did have the same color of eyes as the man in the file. No, he wasn't going to pry into the file unless he had a good reason. And as it stood at the moment, Hisoka didn't have one.

"Oh, and maybe we could get that eclair, too..."

Hisoka literally dragged Tsuzuki out of the library by his ear. "This isn't the time!" he said, pulling Tsuzuki out of the library.

The Guardians then teleported to Spirit World, where the boys and Koenma were waiting. While Tsuzuki was wondering where Andrea and the girls were, Hisoka looked at the toddler. "You said you had to show us something?" he asked.

"Yes," Koenma answered, pressing a button and on the screen were the girls, Andrea in the middle, Viola on her left and Chloe on her right. "You can tell them what you told everyone here."

The Guardians looked at the screen, Tsuzuki with a look of relief on his face. At least the girls weren't hurt.

Andrea blinked, her face somewhat illuminated by the laptop screen in front of her. "Yeah, well," she began. "We were looking up the Seven Deadly Sins, and we found something pretty crappy."

"It looks like the Seven Deadly Sins have to be in order," Viola added, her silver eyes looking at the screen before looking at the webcam on Andrea's laptop. "So here's the order: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy and Pride."

"Yeah, from what we looked up," Chloe interjected. "According to some guy named Dante, he said there was an order of greatness, the least being Lust and the highest being Pride."

"So... Lust should be first, right?" Yusuke asked.

"That would be the case," Kurama answered. "Right?"

"Yes," Andrea answered, tapping the keys on her laptop and a web page coming to view in a half screen with the webcam of the girls on the other side. "Lust is defined as anything sexual. Like thoughts, actions..."

"Professions?" Hisoka asked, looking at the screen at Andrea's face.

"Maybe," Andrea answered, shrugging her shoulders. "I don't know, exactly. But we'll have to look up more before I can answer that one."

_Okay, so maybe Michiko Fujiwara might be taken in by Lust after all,_ Hisoka thought to himself. _But still, I don't know that for sure yet. Shouldn't just jump to conclusions so easily._

"Do you need us to return to Spirit World?" Viola asked.

"Um... just you and Chloe for the time being," Koenma answered. "Andrea, if you find anything more, you let us know."

"Sure thing," Andrea answered, before turning her webcam off.

Tsuzuki watched the screen go black before he looked at Koenma. "Are you sure leaving Andrea by herself is a good idea?" he asked.

"She'll be fine, Tsuzuki," Koenma answered. "She'll be just fine."

* * *

(Okay, so that's Chapter 6, everyone. Yep. Now, I have an announcement. I have five classes this Fall. So, yeah, some of the chapters are going to be either short or late in posting. I'm not done with this story. No way. I'm going to see this one through. With that said, I hope you all like the chapter, and please review and let me know what you think.)


	7. Lust: Chapter 1

Lust: Chapter One  
By: Cece Williams

(Disclaimer: I do not own Yami no Matsuei or Yu Yu Hakusho. Thank God I don't, either. I'd probably make it all topless or something... yeah. Just be glad I don't own them. The names from the files, I do. Andrea, I do. The other two girls, I do.)

(AN: I'm so sorry it's taking me so long to update AGAIN. Accounting classes have been a pain in my butt for a while now. So, just to let you know, this will likely happen again. But don't you worry. I will finish this story for sure. With that said, please read and feel free to drop a review. Along with some hints on how to write during class and not get caught.)

* * *

The morning sun rose in the bedroom window, greeting the sleeping Andrea in her bed. The girl threw the blankets over her head to shield her eyes, unaware to someone... or something... sitting on her bed.

Tsuzuki, in the meantime, was asleep shirtless on the couch, dreaming of cutesy things like cakes and ice cream. He didn't look like anything would wake him up, short of an explosion. But then he heard a scream from Andrea's bedroom, and his eyes snapped open. Without really thinking about putting on a shirt (but more about the scream from her room), he ran to the bedroom doorway and he blinked at the sight.

Andrea, wearing a white spaghetti strap tank top and long tan colored PJ bottoms half-hidden under her sheets, had sat up in her bed and held one of her unfurled bladed fans against what looked to be a floating chicken. Her eyes narrowed at the creature. "All right," she said. "You have two minutes to tell me what you are, or you're dinner."

The creature looked at the blades of the fan and took a deep breath. "All right, I'll tell you," the answer came in a low voice. "I'm one of the Gushoshin twins."

Andrea raised an eyebrow. "Twins?" she echoed. "So... where's the other one?"

"My brother's in the library with Hisoka," he answered before he looked at the blades again. He hoped he wouldn't be dinner like she threatened.

Andrea leaned her arm back and closed her fan. "All right," she said, setting the fan on the mattress. "You won't be dinner."

"You're just like Hisoka said you would be; a girl with blue eyes and an attitude."

"Yep, that's me to a T," Andrea answered before she looked at the doorway and almost hurriedly held the blankets over her chest. Sure Andrea had seen shirtless people before... but to have someone at her doorway shirtless... and looking rather cute... wait, what? Andrea's cheeks tinged red now. Was she really staring at him like a hormonal teenager?

The Gushoshin looked at the shirtless Tsuzuki in the doorway. Oh, was he gonna get it... "Mr. Tsuzuki, you're in front of a woman..."

The rest was cut off by a well-aimed pillow at Tsuzuki's head on Andrea's part. Andrea kept the blankets over her chest with her other hand. It wasn't like her tank top was revealing; it was a matter of that there were some things a man shouldn't see on a woman yet.

"Sorry! Sorry!" Tsuzuki answered before ducking out of the doorway and reappearing in his shirt and slacks. He made a mental note to himself to never do that again.

The Gushoshin sat on the edge of her bed while Andrea now had her warm, blushing face covered with her blanket.

Andrea felt her face cool down slightly. What was wrong with her? She had seen shirtless people before; it wasn't anything new. Yet it was Tsuzuki that made her turn into a cherry? She shut her eyes to try to strip the image of his fit, shirtless body out of her mind. As it turned out, it wasn't as easy as she thought.

The Gushoshin floated over to Andrea and tapped her shoulder. "You know, sometimes he doesn't think very well..." he told her.

"Hey!" Tsuzuki said, pouting from the doorway with big, puppy like amethyst eyes. "I told Andrea I was sorry!"

"I-I'll be all right," Andrea said, lifting her head up and keeping the blankets over her chest. "So, what was so important that you nearly became chicken dinner?" She lifted her arms for a second to pull her hair up in a ponytail before she pulled the blankets back up against her chest.

The Gushoshin floated down to the laptop on Andrea's bed and started typing. "It's about the first Deadly Sin, Lust," he explained.

"We already know it has something to do with sexual thoughts and actions," Andrea said, keeping the sheets over her chest even with Tsuzuki now heading to the bed and sitting on it next to her. "Hisoka asked about professions last night. Would that also be a factor as well?"

Tsuzuki noticed that Andrea smelled like lavender and vanilla from her bath the night before. Maybe it was from the laundry detergent from her sheets. But as he looked at Andrea, he noticed that she was more focused on the case at hand than wondering where a scent came from.

"I'll look up the site," Andrea said, leaning back on her bed and moving some to grab her laptop. After turning it on and putting in her password, she looked on the Internet for the website she had found the night before. "Here it is: Lust is defined as sexual actions, thoughts, and even obsessions."

"That would explain the soul that's with the Reaper Demon you're after," the Gushoshin answered, flying with laptop in tow next to the girl and her own laptop. "Hisoka looked something up earlier this morning."

Andrea looked at the smaller screen at a picture of a woman. She looked no older than twenty-three with long, shiny black hair and deep brown eyes. The woman wore a pair of fishnet stockings, a black skirt that left little to the imagination, and a blood red colored top that revealed more than necessary. "Wow," she said quietly.

Tsuzuki looked at the woman's photo. "Where was she found?" he asked.

"Kabukicho in Shinjuku," Gushoshin answered, next showing the crime scene photos. From looking at the screen, he saw Andrea's wide-eyed reflection.

Andrea looked at the screen at the woman on a bed covered in blood; her throat cut from ear to ear, her brown eyes staring up at the sky while the woman's mouth was open in a silent scream. Her torn clothes looked like rags on her dead body. "I know where Shinjuku is," she said quietly.

"But this is in the Red Light District," Gushoshin answered her. "This is in a very dangerous part of town."

"Look, I'm a Spirit Detective," Andrea countered. "I can take care of myself."

A sick feeling welled up in Tsuzuki's stomach as he looked at the young woman on the bed next to him. He could handle this easily, sure. But he couldn't let Andrea go there, too. She was too young, a teenager, a pretty one at that, jailbait in prefecture law; from what he had heard, the yakuza stayed in that area and could do unspeakable things to her if there was a reason, sometimes without a reason. And it didn't take a genius or a Guardian of Death to know just what they would do to her.

Andrea kept her eyes on the screen. Not a lot scared her anymore. It wasn't like she'd let it show in front of Tsuzuki, anyway.

"You look pale."

Tsuzuki blinked at hearing Andrea's voice snap him out of his reverie. "No, I'm all right," he reassured her. "It's just that... that area, I..."

"What about it?" Andrea asked him, crossing her arms against her chest.

He kept his eyes on hers, not on the prominent headlights she carried within her crossed arms. "I don't know if you should go to Kabukicho," Tsuzuki said.

Andrea raised an eyebrow.

"Andrea..." Tsuzuki kept his amethyst eyes on Andrea's confused blue eyes. "You're rather too young to go to somewhere like that."

Andrea blinked up at him, the confusion melting quicker than ice cream on a hot summer day. "Tsuzuki... I can take care of myself," she answered. "I'm not a child."

The Gushoshin looked at the pair. He just hoped that Andrea wasn't simply blowing smoke. But he could see that Tsuzuki, though overdoing it on the worrying standpoint, had a good point. Andrea would be going somewhere she had never gone before. She was seventeen, after all, jailbait and a child under Tokyo's laws. The things in that area were things someone that young should never have to know about.

Tsuzuki wasn't sure how to get it through Andrea's head that it was almost like a Catholic schoolgirl walking through gang territory. He was worried about Hisoka having to go there as well, and he was a Guardian of Death.

"I'm going, Tsuzuki," Andrea said, her blue eyes flashing defiance. "And that's final."

Now Tsuzuki had two missions: the first to deal with the Deadly Sin of Lust. The second? Keeping Andrea from getting killed. And he wondered which was the easier of the two. Oh, what did Tsuzuki get himself into? Maybe Hisoka was right; he was getting in over his head.

* * *

Night fell on Kabukicho, and the bright signs from various places illuminated the streets and tempted its visitors to seek the treasures within. Lining the streets were host and hostess bars, clubs, and nightclubs, the group walked down the street that was filled with forbidden fruit. Temptation loomed around every corner.

Viola and Chloe had nothing to worry about; Kurama and Yusuke would keep them safe. Kuwabara could take care of himself. Hiei had decided to stay in Spirit World, since he didn't want people to think he was a little boy despite his short stature. But there were two members of the group that worried Tsuzuki more than anything... Hisoka and Andrea. Hisoka's empathy was almost haywire at this point, and Andrea, well... she was in a side of town she had never been in before. That and she had been the victim of a couple of catcalls and whistles.

"Hey, little lady," one man had said. "You want a good man for the night?"

Andrea had ignored him like a champ. Strike one for the drunken guys.

"Come over here, and I'll give you the best night of your life," another drunk guy said.

Strike two.

The third man looked at Tsuzuki, a smile on his face. "Hey, man... how much for the woman?" he asked, thinking the man with her was her pimp. The stench of alcohol was blatantly obvious.

Andrea and Tsuzuki looked at each other, shocked and rather perturbed, before the girl clocked the drunken man in the face. Tsuzuki was glad he wasn't a target. For once.

Strike three. Andrea 1, drunken losers 0.

Hisoka looked at the pair. The voices and perverted emotions were making him nearly overloaded, and he could tell that Andrea was highly uncomfortable with the prior men trying to hit on her. "How about we get somewhere away from these people?" he asked the group.

"Yeah, I'm in," Yusuke said. "Sounds like a good idea, Hisoka."

The rest of the group agreed, Tsuzuki obviously if there was food in mind. Tsuzuki looked down at Andrea, who looked rather distracted and slightly pale. "Andrea?"

Andrea blinked, snapping out of it. "What?" she asked, looking up at him.

"We're going to get something to eat," he answered, holding his hand to the small of her back and leading her inside.

Andrea nodded. Yes, maybe food would be best right now.

* * *

Viola, Chloe, and Andrea sat down at a table while Tsuzuki and Hisoka sat at a table by themselves. Yusuke, Kuwabara and Kurama all sat in one nearby the two tables.

Chloe looked at Andrea. "You okay?" she asked her.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Andrea answered. "W-What do we know about her?"

At another table, Tsuzuki kept his eyes on Andrea, all while Hisoka talked of what he found out about Michiko Fujiwara. Tsuzuki's eyes softened as he saw that Andrea was going to be fine. "Are you any better, Hisoka?" he asked his partner.

"I'm better now," Hisoka answered. "Andrea's going to be fine, you know. She's not used to working with that kind of environment."

Kurama looked at the Guardians. "You're saying that her soul is somewhere here in this area?" he asked.

"Yes," Hisoka answered. "Michiko worked in a nightclub near here. The only thing is that the nightclub wouldn't be something the girls should go into." He looked over at Andrea, who was now checking her cell phone.

"Oh, come on," Chloe said. "How bad could it be, really? It's a club."

"This isn't like the clubs back home, Chloe," Andrea said, her eyes focused to her cell phone and reading a message to herself. Work in the morning. No rest for the girl, no. "These kinds are for the hentai in people."

"Work in the morning, Andrea?" Tsuzuki asked her.

She blinked up at him, unsure of how he could tell from that angle. Then again, maybe it wasn't a good idea to ask. "Yeah," she answered. "And I don't need an escort, either."

Viola giggled. She had heard that Tsuzuki and Hisoka had gone to her workplace, mostly with the former's suggestion. "Well, since we don't want to cramp the guys' style, we could stay here," she offered. "You know, in case we see her first."

Kurama nodded. From what he had gathered, Tsuzuki didn't want to leave Andrea alone, and it would take a hell of a lot of convincing otherwise. Maybe if another male was there with the girls... just to not make them vulnerable. Just in case.

Kuwabara proudly raised his hand. "I'll stay with them," he said.

Viola nodded her head. "That'd be fine, right guys?"

Chloe nodded her head. At least with Kuwabara and his sixth sense, they'd know if anything came up. "That sounds good," she answered. "What about you, Andrea?"

"Doesn't matter, really," Andrea answered, tapping the keys on her cell phone. It didn't really matter to her who stayed, just as long as this night would be over with.

Tsuzuki felt a rush of relief flow through him like a tsunami wave. Someone would stay with the girls while the men went to investigate.

"Just keep Tsuzuki there on a short leash," Andrea said, looking at the group that was going to leave.

"That won't be a problem," Hisoka said, giving Tsuzuki a look that made the older Guardian gulp. "You heard her. Best behavior. Got it?"

Tsuzuki nodded. Best behavior. Got it. Couldn't be too hard to do that.

"We'll be back in a little while," Hisoka told the group at the table. "And let you know what we found out."

"Just be careful out there," Chloe told them as they left and nodded to them.

Andrea looked up from her phone just as the four guys had left. She just hoped nothing bad would happen. But one problem still remained: why couldn't she get that thought of her roommate's shirtless body out of her head? What was wrong with her?

* * *

After the beef and the sauces were set on the table near the hibachi grill on the table, Kuwabara had left to go to the men's room, leaving the girls alone.

"So, since we're working together, we should talk about ourselves," Chloe said, setting several pieces of beef on the grill with the tongs that were on the table. "You know, hobbies and stuff. Maybe also our abilities, but we don't have to show them now."

"Oh, that sounds like fun," Viola said. "It'll give us a chance to know each other better."

Andrea nodded her head. Okay, maybe some normal, teenage conversation would help drag that memory to the back burner.

Chloe took a deep breath. "I live in Mushiyori City with my grandfather," she answered. "Mom and Dad both work abroad a lot, so I don't see them much. I'm able to create blades with my Spirit Energy, like knife blades. I'll show you guys later."

"That's pretty cool," Viola said, smiling. "I live in Shinagawa with my father. My mother, she..." She took a deep breath. "She left after I was born."

"Geez," Chloe said, shaking her head.

Andrea shook her head as well. How could someone do that to their own child? "Sorry to hear that," she said.

"It's all right, though," Viola answered. "My father works a lot to help support him and me. I can make a staff out of Spirit Energy. It's not much, but it's good for attacking demons and stuff."

"Now that is cool," Chloe said, looking at Andrea. "So, what about you, Andrea?"

"Before I answer that, could I see the tongs for a second?" Andrea asked, holding her hand out.

"Huh?" Chloe asked. "Oh, sure." She handed Andrea the tongs and watched as the auburn haired girl turned the slices of beef over with the utmost care and precision.

"The meat won't get cooked unless it's turned," Andrea answered her, setting the tongs down.

"Oh, thanks," Viola said, sniffing the air near them. The meat was cooking nicely now. "Um, what about you, Andrea?"

Andrea took a deep breath. "My parents died when I was younger," she answered.

"I'm so sorry," Viola said, her silver eyes downcast.

"That sucks," Chloe added.

"Well, it's okay now," Andrea replied, watching the meat cook on the hibachi grill. "I'm an okay cook. I'm not a chef or anything, but I cook to survive."

"Did you learn that from a restaurant?" Chloe asked.

"Yeah, Ukai Toriyama," Andrea answered. "I don't mind working there. It's really nice there."

"So, what can you do with your Spirit Energy?" Viola asked.

"I can make my bladed fans a little more dangerous," Andrea answered, grabbing the tongs and picking up a piece of beef before setting it back down on the grill. "Tsuzuki saw them the first night."

Chloe rested her elbows on the table and folded her hands under her chin. "So... how are things with you and Tsuzuki?" she asked.

"I-It's okay, I guess," Andrea answered. Maybe the talk wouldn't help after all.

"I bet he likes her already," Chloe said to Viola, who giggled gently.

The image of Tsuzuki's shirtless body in her doorway from earlier that morning flooded back into Andrea's mind. She kept trying to push the thought away, but it was not as easy as she had thought it would be. "W-What are you talking about?" she asked them.

"You're turning red," Viola answered her. "Did something happen?"

"N-Nothing really," Andrea said. "J-Just that, well..."

Chloe blinked at her. "Well?" she prodded.

Andrea took a deep breath. "H-He showed up at the doorway to my bedroom... w-without a shirt on," she finally answered. Okay, now it was out.

Chloe blinked before she smiled at her friend. "Andrea, you fox," she said. "So, what did you do? I bet you stared at him..."

"I threw a pillow at his head," Andrea answered.

Now, the other two girls looked at each other. What did she just say? "What?" they asked in unison.

"Oh, come on, Andrea," Chloe said. "You act like you've never had a..." She stopped just as she saw Andrea look down at the table.

"Andrea... y-you've never... had a boyfriend?" Viola asked her.

Andrea shook her head.

"Oh, my God... a-and you didn't stare at him at all?" Chloe asked.

"Why should I?" Andrea asked, looking up and checking the meat before turning the pieces over again. "There's a case going on, and I don't have the time to invest in a relationship."

Kuwabara finally arrived back at the table and sat down. "Mmm... it smells good now," he said.

Andrea was glad the conversation was off of her now. Thank God for small favors...

"Yeah, it does," Chloe said just as Andrea turned the pieces over again. "They look done to me."

"Yeah," Viola agreed. "Let's eat!"

After the meat was on their plates, the foursome put their hands together and bowed their heads. "Itadakimasu," the four people at the table said before they slowly ate. Their minds were on if something should happen.

Andrea's mind wandered about that amethyst eyed Guardian. _Hope he's not doing something stupid_, she thought before she took a sip of water.

* * *

(Okay, this is the start of the Lust chapters. "Itadakimasu" is like saying grace for the food. I wanted to brush up on my Japanese terminology here, too. So, yeah. I hope you like this chapter and please leave me a review. Thank you guys for reading!)


	8. Lust: Chapter 2

Lust: Chapter Two

By: Cece Williams

(Disclaimer: I do NOT own Yami no Matsuei or Yu Yu Hakusho at all. Nope, nothing. Just the OCs. That's all I own.)

(AN: I'm going to give y'all a fair warning. This chapter is going to have a health club in it. Now, in Kabukicho, it's really a massage parlor. If you want to see what one is like, just keep reading. With that said I hope you enjoy reading and please leave a review.)

* * *

Hisoka held a piece of paper in his hand with the name of a place written on it. While he walked, his partner, Yusuke, and Kurama walked with him down the streets of Kabukicho. The lights from the area beckoned sinners to seek salvation.

"So, where's that place you said she worked at?" Yusuke asked.

"First right here and four places on the left," Hisoka answered.

The foursome walked down the street, following the directions to the letter. They looked around, keeping their wits about them; this was considered Yakuza territory, after all. Once they arrived, they saw a sign with a beautiful Japanese girl on it reading "Asian Relief."

"Wow, she worked here?" Yusuke said, stretching his arms over his head. "You know, a massage does sound good about now..."

Kurama looked closer at the sign outside the door, keeping a calm look about him. "It's not that kind of massage, Yusuke," he answered.

Hisoka looked at the sign and took a deep breath before he walked inside into the lobby, Tsuzuki following him and Yusuke and Kurama after him. The lobby area was nicely lit, with comfortable couches for the customers to sit on, totally unexpected from the outside.

A young woman saw the foursome and smiled at them, her black hair in a shoulder-length bob. Her outfit looked almost like a red Chinese style dress, only much shorter than it was normally made and also a cutout in a diamond shape, which revealed her chest for open view. "Welcome," she said in perfect Japanese. "We have a special today. If you bring in more than two people, you get yours half off."

Being the only adult out of the foursome, Tsuzuki gently smiled at her, his amethyst eyes with a gentle look about them.

Three more women with black hair at varying lengths from short to long walked out of their rooms to see the foursome, their faces all in smiles. Four deliciously sexy people in their establishment? Things could be interesting.

"Ooh, Kyoko," one of these women said, grabbing Tsuzuki's arm in hers. "You shouldn't hog them to yourself!"

Another of the women grabbed Tsuzuki's other arm in hers. "I'll be more than happy to take him off your hands," she said, moving his arm against her chest.

"No, I saw him first!" Kyoko protested.

Tsuzuki looked at the pair and felt as if he was in the middle of an ensuing catfight. This wasn't going to end well...

"Ladies?" Kurama said in an effort to bring the focus onto the case at hand, not the fight that was ensuing.

Two more of the girls, who had heard the commotion and had appeared from their rooms, literally grabbed Kurama by either of his arms and stared at each other fiercely, as if they were going to tear each other apart. Kurama simply stood in the middle, staying calm in this rather difficult situation.

Hisoka simply face palmed. Obviously talking to them wouldn't work. And with all the excitement, he didn't notice a new girl near him.

"Aww... aren't you just simply adorable?" a woman with her long black hair up in a ponytail said, advancing on Hisoka like a tiger onto her prey. But before she could touch him...

"Ladies!" a female voice called from the hallway, followed by a sound of hands hitting one another.

The women let go of the guys, and the woman who was advancing towards Hisoka backed off like a whipped puppy.

The owner of the voice in the hallway appeared in front of them. She was a woman in her mid-thirties with wavy, coal black hair down to her waist with chocolate brown eyes. She wore an outfit much like the women that had backed away from the men, although her body looked like she was in her twenties. Her chest almost looked like it would pop out of the top of her outfit as she clapped her hands together.

"What have I told you about swarming yourselves around customers like that?" she asked.

All of the women simply bowed their heads in shame. Damn it, they had gotten caught.

"I am so sorry this happened," the owner said, looking at the four men. "I sincerely hope they didn't hurt you."

"It's all right," Hisoka answered, thankful that the girls were away. The last thing he needed at this point was to become overloaded and pass out now.

"I take it you are the owner?" Kurama asked the woman.

The owner nodded her head. "Yes," she answered. "I am Aki Midou."

Yusuke had been looking at the owner in a way that warranted Hisoka to smack him upside his head.

"I'm sorry for that," Hisoka said politely. "My friend here obviously doesn't know how to handle himself."

"It's quite all right," Aki answered, smiling gently.

Now Tsuzuki had to get his mind back on the case at hand before he became the next victim of Hisoka's hand upside his head. "Is there somewhere we could all talk?" he asked.

"Certainly," Aki answered. "We'll go to my office. Please follow me." She started before the girls all looked up and saw the men leave with their boss.

"Aww... and I wanted to give that hot one with the coat a good massage," Kyoko said as the girls went back to their respective rooms, the girls all whining about the four men.

* * *

At the restaurant, Kuwabara couldn't believe what he heard. "Andrea, you've never had a boyfriend?" he asked her.

"Yeah," Andrea answered, setting some more beef up onto the Hibachi grill on the table. "It's not like it's a secret, you know."

Viola looked at Andrea after setting down her glass of water. "Are you serious?" she asked. "So, you mean to tell the three of us that you don't have any feelings for your roommate at all?"

Andrea wasn't really sure what to think. It was one thing to see shirts ripped off in battle, but these guys were her comrades, her protégés, if one willed to think of it like that. But Tsuzuki... well... what could Andrea say about him? The image of his shirtless body from earlier that morning still preyed upon her mind. And no matter how many times she had tried to shove the memory out of her mind, it was no longer possible to do that. What was it about that moron that she liked? More importantly... DID she like him more than she was letting on?

"It's only been a month, Viola," Andrea finally answered, drinking some of her own water.

"And that means what? What does that have to do with the fact that you probably like him?"

Andrea shook her head just as she turned the beef over on the grill. "A month's not a long amount of time," she answered.

"Yeah, but he's staying with you," Chloe answered.

"That's just it. He's staying with me, and that's the only thing we have in common," Andrea said.

Kuwabara wasn't so sure about that, but he could tell that Andrea was not comfortable with how the conversation was going. That much he knew for sure. The best thing to do in this situation?

"So, the beef's pretty good," Kuwabara said in an effort to change the subject.

Yeah, the best thing Kuwabara could do was change the subject.

"Yeah, it sure is," Chloe answered, making a mental note to ask Andrea about Tsuzuki later.

Andrea felt relief wash over her. Finally, the subject wasn't on her and her roommate anymore. Thank God. She took a deep breath as she turned the meat over again. She hoped the guys had better luck than they were having.

* * *

Aki led the four men into her office before she closed the door. Her office wasn't much, a couple of couches, a forth of one wall covered with pictures of employees and a desk and a chair. As much as she wanted to get to know the foursome intimately, her years of experience thought that there was more to them. "Once again, I am so sorry the girls did that," she said as she sat at her desk.

The foursome all sat down on the couches, Tsuzuki and Hisoka on one with Yusuke and Kurama on the other.

"It's all right," Hisoka answered, choosing to speak for the more mature ones at least.

Aki nodded her head, clasping her hands on the desk. "So, what brings you fine gentlemen by?" she asked.

"We wanted to know about Michiko Fujiwara," Tsuzuki answered. "She worked here for you?"

"Oh, she was quite popular here," Aki replied. "Her customers loved her, one in particular. A Caucasian male, if I'm not mistaken. He asked for her specifically for every visit."

"Do you remember how often?"

"Every three months," Aki answered, smiling at the men in her office. "I guess he wasn't happy at home. Maybe that's why he came back."

"Did he come back more often than he normally did?" Kurama asked.

"Two nights before she died," Aki replied before taking a deep breath. She slowly stood up from her chair and looked at the wall. "You have to understand that I can't speak ill of the dead..."

"I understand," Tsuzuki answered. "But anything you could tell us, we'd gladly appreciate it."

Aki took a deep breath, looking at a framed picture of Michiko. The young woman in the picture looked rather young to be taking a job like this in such an area. "Two nights before she died," she started with a rather far-away look in her eyes. "Her favorite customer came. She was so happy; she smiled when she saw him, and I saw this happy look in her eyes. After he had left, Michiko came to my office completely on her own accord, her face stuck in worry. I asked her if she was all right, and even though she told me she was fine, I could tell she wasn't." Aki sighed, lowering her head. "I wanted her to tell me what was bothering her, but... it was like she couldn't."

"Couldn't? How?" Kurama asked.

"I knew that she had grown attached to her customer, who of which is seriously frowned upon," Aki answered. "We never allow that here." She looked at Michiko's picture again and sighed. "I really wanted to help her. She just never said anything..." She blinked, her breath hitched in her throat.

"What is it?" Tsuzuki asked her.

Aki walked back to the desk and sat down before she started opening all of the drawers. "T-There was a man named Satoshi who came in the night before Michiko..." Her hand stopped opening the drawer as her eyes closed.

Hisoka watched it all unfold. "She really must have cared about Michiko to be this emotional," he said to his partner quietly. "I could tell from the minute she looked at Michiko's picture."

Tsuzuki nodded. "Yeah," he answered. "She really must have tried to keep Michiko out of trouble..."

"Are you all right?" Yusuke asked the woman at the desk.

"Yes," Aki answered. "I'll be just fine. It's just that... it's hard to think of Michiko being dead, is all."

"It must have been quite a shock finding out the way you did," Kurama answered.

Aki nodded her head. "I just didn't think Satoshi'd do something like that..."

"Who's Satoshi?" Tsuzuki asked.

"Satoshi Nakamura. He was her ex-boyfriend," Aki answered, holding her chest to keep her heart from beating furiously out of her chest. "She had mentioned him a few times."

"Had you had any problems with him?" Kurama asked.

"I think the better question is, who _hasn't_ had a problem with him," Aki answered, crossing her arms over her chest. "The night that Michiko died... he dragged her out of here by her hair. She was screaming for him to let her go... I-I... I tried to stop him... i-if I had been closer..."

"He would have hurt you as well as Michiko," Hisoka answered from the couch, his arms against his chest while he sat upright on the couch. "Michiko knew you cared about her, Miss Midou. She wouldn't have wanted you being hurt to be on her conscience."

Aki blinked over at them. "H-How would you know that?" she asked.

"I'm able to feel others' emotions when they are nearby," Hisoka answered. It was better to be honest than to lie to probably one of the few that could help them. "I can tell that you cared about Michiko like she was your own."

Aki nodded her head. "I did," she answered. "But for her to die that way... so horribly... so..." Her voice wracked with emotion as she covered her eyes with one of her hands. Part of her wanted to push the picture of Michiko's corpse out of her mind. The other part couldn't.

"If you're not comfortable right now, we can leave," Kurama offered. "This likely is still upsetting you."

"No, I'll be all right," Aki answered. "It's just that... the picture..."

Kurama nodded, giving Hisoka an understanding nod. Unlike Hisoka, who was an Empath, Kurama could tell, from years of experience that if something was wrong. He just knew.

Aki took a deep breath. "I just wish I could have done something more for her," she said, her voice creaking with regret and despair. "If I had only gotten closer... if only I hadn't failed her."

The last statement froze Tsuzuki's insides. Failed... it was the one thing he wouldn't do. Not again. That was why he was determined to stop anyone else from being hurt. He didn't want anyone else to be hurt or killed because they knew him.

"You likely didn't fail her," Kurama said, his alto voice calm. "She knew you tried to help her. Sometimes, sadly, that's all you can do."

"I suppose you're right," Aki answered, looking up at them with a small smile. "Well, I hate to run you off, but..."

"We understand that you're rather busy," Hisoka said, nudging his partner. He could cut the tension around Tsuzuki's aura with a knife.

Tsuzuki snapped back to attention. "Yes, well," he said, following his partner's lead. "We'll let you get back to work. We'll come back if we need more information."

"All right," Aki said as she stood up. "I'll see you out."

* * *

Chloe put a small piece of her beef into her mouth. "So, this is hibachi," she said.

"Yeah, that's hibachi," Andrea answered, turning the third order of beef over.

"You're not still hungry, are you?" Viola asked.

"Oh, my God, Andrea, are you pregnant?" Chloe asked.

Andrea nearly dropped the tongs. "What?! No!" she exclaimed, her blue eyes wide as saucers. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Well, you're fixing more of that," Chloe answered her.

"It's for the guys, silly," Andrea answered. "I mean, come on. They probably haven't eaten..."

"Mmm... that smells good!" a voice came from behind Andrea.

The group watched just as Andrea squeaked and smacked Tsuzuki on his head with the tongs still in her hand. Yusuke busted out laughing. "Hey, man... we warned you!" he said, laughing.

Tsuzuki rubbed his head. "Oww..." he said. "That hurt, Andrea..."

"Well, that's what you get for sneaking up behind me like that!" Andrea said, holding the tongs dangerously close to Tsuzuki's nose.

"Well, how was I to know you had that in your hand?" Tsuzuki asked her.

"You snuck up behind me! You tell me!"

Kurama chuckled into his hand. In truth, he HAD warned Tsuzuki about sneaking up behind her. Maybe now he learned his lesson.

Hisoka wasn't holding his breath.

The guys sat down at the table next to them, all the while Tsuzuki was staring at the beef on the other table's hibachi grill. His head wasn't hurting anymore. Just his pride.

"What's up?" Chloe asked them.

"We found out more about Michiko," Yusuke answered. "Other than the fact she was a total babe..."

The girls rolled their eyes in unison.

"... We found out about some guy named Satoshi," Yusuke finished.

"Evidently, Satoshi was protective of Michiko, even after she broke up with him," Hisoka said. "That and he's a very dangerous man."

Tsuzuki kept from wanting to sit next to Andrea at hearing that. Satoshi was dangerous, and while he knew Andrea was more than capable of taking care of herself, he wasn't sure what this man was capable of.

Andrea picked up the tongs and turned the beef on the grill over. "We've dealt with demons, Hisoka," she said, treating the cooking meat with care.

"So you know what to expect."

"To an extent," Andrea answered, still looking at the meat. "So... how do you take yours?"

"My what?" Yusuke asked.

"The beef, dummy," Chloe answered.

Hisoka looked at the meat. "Like that is fine for me," he said to the auburn-haired girl with the tongs.

"Sure," Andrea answered, setting the meat on a clean plate, along with the little cups of dipping sauces.

"Andrea's a wiz with that," Viola said just as Andrea set the plate in front of the blond.

"Well, with hibachi, you have to cook it yourself," Andrea answered as she sat down. "Just move the table over, guys."

After the table was moved over and touching their table, Andrea gave each of the guys a plate along with the same kind of sauces in cups that Hisoka had on his plate.

"I'm not an Iron Chef or anything like that, but I mainly cook to survive," Andrea said gently.

"That's better than this guy," Hisoka said, nodding his head in Tsuzuki's direction.

"Hey! I can cook, too, you know!" Tsuzuki said, pouting.

"He can?" Andrea asked.

Hisoka leaned over closer to Andrea and whispered in her ear, "You shouldn't let him try. He tends to over-spice food. OFTEN."

"Gotcha," Andrea said before they leaned back in their chairs. She looked over at Tsuzuki, who had devoured his piece like a wolf tearing into a bear's leg. "Is he like that all the time?"

Hisoka nodded. "Yes," he answered. "My advice to you, Andrea?"

"Sure."

"I wouldn't underestimate Tsuzuki," Hisoka explained. "There's more to him than just the moron façade he pulls out in front of everyone."

"Don't underestimate him?" Andrea said to herself before she looked over at Tsuzuki again, who was now getting pawed away from Hisoka's plate. She wasn't sure if she thought Hisoka was blowing smoke or telling the truth. What was it about him? _What an idiot,_ she thought as she leaned back in her chair. _What is so frightening about this guy, anyway?_

* * *

(Okay, that's the end of the second Lust chapter. I hope you guys enjoyed it. I will try to get some awesome stuff in it for the next chapter. Read and review.)


	9. Lust: Final Chapter

Lust: Chapter 3

By: Cece Williams

(Disclaimer: I do not own Yami no Matsuei or Yu Yu Hakusho. Thankfully, I don't want to own them. Just play around with them some.)

(AN: I'm so sorry for how much time it's taken me to write these chapters. Homework and finals have never been kind to me. A little warning: I will have some kinda gross stuff here. Then again, Accounting NEVER is forgiving. Okay, enough excuses. Let's go!)

**xoxoxo**

_Michiko lay on the bed in the love hotel, struggling to breathe. But the more she tried to, the more blood escaped her cut throat. "W-Why..." she managed to get out, her voice choking from her own blood. When she coughed, the bleeding got worse._

_A man with dark brown eyes and gelled-back brown hair gave the dying woman a menacing smile. "If I can't have you, no one else will..." he said, holding the knife in his hand like a close family friend. "You sure you don't want to change your mind?"_

_Michiko reached her hand up to him in a feeble attempt to defend herself. "W-Why... a-are you d-doing this t-to me?" she hoarsely got out._

_The man's smile turned into a menacing frown. "I told you... you belong to me forever," he answered. "Now... I won't ask again."_

"_G-Go to hell... S-Sa..." The rest was silenced by the knife ripping into her chest, the cold blade finally killing her._

_The man stood up from the bed, pulling the knife from the corpse on the bed. His mouth widened into a smile at the grisly sight before him. "Such a stupid little bitch..." he said before he slammed the knife down again..._

**xoxoxo**

Hisoka snapped himself awake before he sat up in the guest bedroom at Kurama's house. He held a hand to his chest and looked around. No blood, no corpse... it was all a dream. Was it really? Hisoka thought to himself as he got out of bed.

"Hisoka? Are you all right?" Kurama asked from outside in the hallway.

"Yes, Shuichi, I'm all right," Hisoka answered, careful to use Kurama's human name in public. He changed into a pair of jeans, a denim jacket and an orange shirt before he opened the door.

Kurama stood there in a light jacket with a red shirt and jeans. "Are you sure?" he said.

Hisoka wiped his brow slowly. "Yes, it was just a rough night," he answered, sensing that Kurama knew that something was wrong. "It was about Michiko's death."

"You mentioned that you were able to ascertain the thoughts of others from clairvoyance," Kurama said sagely.

Hisoka nodded. "Just as easily as I could tell of your feelings for Andrea," he replied.

Kurama blinked at him. "What?"

"You care about her," Hisoka said. "Any fool can see that. But something happened between you."

Kurama took a deep breath. "You're right," he answered. "She's a smart girl, sarcastic at times, but still a smart girl. I said something she didn't need to hear, and she wasn't the same again."

"What was it?"

Kurama took another deep breath. "That I didn't feel the same for her as she did for me," he answered. "I knew she was hurt, but she stood there as if she wasn't sure whether to hate me or to break down. And before I could stop her, she told Botan to take her home."

"She just needed some time to cool down," Hisoka said. "You should take some time to talk with her alone. I think she'd appreciate that."

Kurama thought about it and knew that Hisoka was probably right. At least until some of this case has calmed down some. "Perhaps you're right."

**xoxoxo**

Andrea sat in the living room in her apartment with a bottle of green tea on a coaster. She held her laptop in her lap and was busy looking up articles about Michiko Fujiwara. Her blue eyes scanned the screen as she looked for any information that looked useful. Thankfully, it was Andrea's day off from work, so she was more than happy to help out.

The door to her apartment opened and Tsuzuki walked in, carrying a large coffee in one hand while holding a bag of muffins in his teeth. Morning food runs were always fun for him. He pulled the bag down. "Andrea, I'm back," he said, seeing the auburn haired girl on the couch.

"Welcome back," Andrea said, looking up for a second before rubbing her eyes.

"How long have you been up?" Tsuzuki asked as he sat down next to her.

"Only an hour," she answered. "It's my day off, remember?"

"Oh, right." He set the bag of muffins down on the coffee table before he noticed the bottle of green tea. "You like green tea, Andrea?"

Andrea leaned up and grabbed the bottle. "Yeah," she answered, taking a small swallow of it. "Supposed to help with preventing cancer and stuff, and since I'm running around all the time, I can't be too careful."

"True." He looked at her. Maybe Andrea hadn't recovered from Kabukicho as well as he thought. There were so much sexual thoughts and places there that would corrupt a soul like hers. "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine."

And that was all Tsuzuki was able to get out of her. Until...

"Did you ever find out anything about where Michiko might have gone the night she died?" Andrea asked as she set the bottle back on the coffee table.

"It was a love hotel in the area," Tsuzuki answered. "Called..."

"Called the Paradise," a voice said from inside the apartment.

Tsuzuki looked up just as Andrea had started to reach between the cushions. "Andrea, it's all right," he reassured her, looking at her before looking at Tatsumi.

Andrea relaxed her hand from between the couch cushions. "I'm going to need an alarm system at this rate," she said as she looked up at the man in the room. "What about the Paradise?"

Tatsumi sat down on the loveseat, facing the pair on the couch. "The Paradise is the love hotel that our victim, Michiko Fujiwara, was found murdered," he explained. "I assume you saw the pictures."

"Who hadn't?" Andrea asked. "I guess you're not here just to tell us that."

"You're observant," Tatsumi answered. "And you're right."

Andrea blinked as she heard her ringtone on her cell phone. She reached over and grabbed it before she leaned back on the couch and answered it. "Hello?"

"Andrea?" Hisoka asked from the other end.

"Oh, hi, Hisoka," Andrea said, wondering just how in the hell he got her number. "What's up?"

"Mr. Tatsumi is at your apartment, right?" Hisoka asked her.

Andrea looked up to the loveseat, still seeing Tatsumi there. "Yeah, he's here," she answered, pressing a button on her phone to make it a speakerphone. "Okay, can you hear us now?"

"That's better," he answered. "I found out something about Michiko's last night alive."

"What is it?" Tatsumi asked him.

"The last person to see her alive was Satoshi Nakamura."

"Her ex-boyfriend," Tsuzuki said. "But why would he want to see her?"

"Beats me," Andrea answered.

Tatsumi stood up from the loveseat and sat down next to Andrea's left side. "Kurosaki, I want you and Tsuzuki to go talk to Michiko's former employer," he said. "Kurama should go along."

"But what about..." Tsuzuki started.

Tatsumi knew it would be about one of two things: the muffins in the bag on the coffee table or Andrea. And he wasn't sure which of the two, or if any, Tsuzuki should be worried about. "Andrea will be just fine," he told his former partner.

"I told him that this morning," Andrea said.

"He doesn't listen very well," Hisoka said over the phone.

"Hey!" Tsuzuki said, pouting at the pair in the room. "You're so mean, Hisoka..."

Andrea rolled her eyes as she looked at the laptop screen. It was true: Tsuzuki was an idiot. And being sandwiched between two Guardians of Death wasn't something to write home about. "So, what about the rest of us?" she asked.

Hisoka answered, "You girls can take care of yourselves, so if you're okay with heading back to Kabukicho and try to find out more about Satoshi, that'd be great."

As if on cue, Tsuzuki whined. It was bad enough Andrea had to be subjected to the sea of temptation once, but now twice? He wasn't having that.

"Tsuzuki, Andrea and the girls will be fine," Tatsumi reassured him. "Just go with Kurosaki and Kurama."

"Oh, we have Hiei on our side, too," Andrea chimed in. "He's not swayed THAT easily."

Tsuzuki felt a little better. A little. At least they would be safe. At least, he hoped so.

"So, where does that loser live, anyway?" Andrea asked.

"He lives on the edge of Kabukicho," Tatsumi answered. "But he doesn't leave his house until at night. So, until then, you and the girls try to find out as much as you can."

Andrea nodded. "Sure," she answered, tapping her fingers on the laptop.

"I'll talk with Kurosaki and see what he's found," Tatsumi said. "And Tsuzuki... you stay on your best behavior."

Tsuzuki blinked. "W-What gave you the impression I wasn't?" he asked.

"Want me to start a list?" Andrea said without looking up.

Tatsumi hid a smile behind his hand. Kurosaki was right; Andrea did have a sharp tongue. "Well," he said. "I'll leave you two to your part."

"All right," Hisoka said from over the phone before he heard Tatsumi leave Andrea's apartment. "I'll meet Tsuzuki in an hour to figure out the Michiko end."

"Okay," Tsuzuki answered. "Just be careful."

"Of course, idiot," Hisoka answered before he hung up.

Now it was time to figure out just how much of Andrea's life Tsuzuki knew. And she was going to regret asking. "So, from as little as you're getting out of me, what can you surmise about me?" Andrea asked after she knew Tatsumi had left her apartment.

"More than you think," Tsuzuki answered. "The taste of decor around your apartment leads me to believe you're from the United States, and the sharp tongue you have comes from years of not being taken seriously, so you put up a wall to shield the teenager in you away. Also, the fact of your hair always being up when you're around people suggests that you're been hiding something for years. And finally, when you brushed off the topic of your parents, I'd have to guess that you're an orphan."

Andrea blinked at Tsuzuki. Oh, this was going to go well... "All right, two can play this game," she said. "From the clothes you have on, you give off the look of a lazy coworker; someone that people would have to smack you upside the head repeatedly for you to listen. You come from a job that is highly contradictory; you worry about the living world and hate it when someone gets hurt, hence you being highly protective." She took a mini doughnut into her hand from Tsuzuki's grasp. "And the fact that you're not fat or have diabetes from eating all this sugar means that you have more regard for everyone else before yourself. And since you haven't told me a lot about YOU, I'd have to say you're just as I am."

Tsuzuki blinked at her, unable to find his voice. So she was stubborn. Smart and rather feisty, but stubborn. He took a deep breath. "You're getting there. From the fact that you're living alone, you don't look like the kind of person that likes roommates or you've never had one."

Andrea looked at him. "Okay," she answered, tilting her head onto the back of the couch. "Seeing as how stubborn you get and not letting me out of your sight, I'd have to say you're more worried about me than your boss would like. And that you get into more trouble than you can get out of on your own." Andrea still held the mini doughnut in her hand. "All for the sake of a doughnut."

"Close..." Tsuzuki said, plucking the doughnut back from Andrea's grasp. "Very close."

Andrea blinked at the doughnut being taken away from her and then at Tsuzuki with an eyebrow raised as Tsuzuki ate it. So there was more to Tsuzuki than she first thought. "So, as charming as you claim you are, Tsuzuki... I'll be keeping my eye on the case at hand," she said, reaching for her bottle of green tea. "And off of your very nice ass."

Tsuzuki coughed into his hand at what he heard. Did he hear Andrea right? Did Kabukicho bring this out of her? "W-When did you notice that?" he asked, finally gaining his voice after a minute.

"It's not just you men that look below the belt," Andrea said, sipping her green tea.

_Touché_, Tsuzuki thought as he started drinking his coffee. _She sure is a handful. What did I get myself into?_

**xoxoxo**

While the girls were going to Satoshi's apartment, the guys were checking out Michiko's apartment. Hisoka had just gotten back from teleporting the girls inside the apartment undetected, and he hoped they would be careful. If Satoshi was capable of hurting Michiko, there was no telling just what he _was_ capable of.

When Hisoka touched the doorway into Michiko's bedroom, he gripped the doorknob and gasped. He saw a frightened Michiko shoving letters into a drawer in his mind. But as he looked up, he saw a young woman of only twenty-three with long black hair and dark brown eyes.

"Hisoka? What's going on?" Kuwabara asked him before he looked in the doorway over Hisoka's shoulder and screamed.

The others ran to the doorway and blinked at the woman in the bedroom.

"You're Michiko, aren't you?" Hisoka asked.

The woman nodded. "Yes," she answered. "What are you doing in my apartment?"

Yusuke looked at the woman in the room. "We're trying to figure out what happened."

"Oh, so you think you care about me," Michiko answered. "That you care about some cheap whore from Kabukicho."

"Do you remember of a man named Satoshi Nakamura?" Kurama asked her.

At that name, Michiko's face turned pale. "Oh, no..." she said, sitting down on her bed.

"What's wrong?" Tsuzuki asked her.

Michiko pointed to a drawer on her nightstand. "That will explain everything."

**xoxoxo**

Viola looked around the living room, searching between the couch cushions and sighing. "There's nothing here," she said.

Chloe had come out of the bedroom, shaking her head. "Nothing here, either," she agreed.

Andrea looked in a dresser and raised a hand to her mouth. "Oh, my God," she said.

"What is it?" Viola and Chloe asked in unison before they looked inside the drawer.

Inside the drawer was full of pictures of Michiko, ranging from innocent ones of them dating to more possessive ones of her while at her work and even walking to her apartment. Some even had other men's faces either burned off or cut out and replaced with his own.

"This guy's freaking sick," Viola said.

"'Sick' wouldn't be the word I'd want to use," Andrea said.

"He's taking this way too far," Chloe replied. "I mean, what part of a break-up did he not understand? She didn't want to be with him."

"I don't like this," Viola said. "Let's just get out of here..."

Andrea was about to answer them when she heard a noise from outside. _The front door,_ she thought. Cursing under her breath, she looked at them. "Yeah, let's get out of here," she said quietly before she closed the drawer just as quietly.

Viola found a window before she unlocked and opened the window and climbed out onto the fire escape. "Come on," she said.

Chloe followed almost immediately while Andrea brought up the rear as she climbed out and closed it quietly.

Satoshi walked into the apartment and stretched before he blinked. He walked into the living room and looked around. Something didn't feel right, and he confirmed it when he pushed the window open. It was unlocked! Someone had been inside his apartment! He reached into a drawer and grabbed a gun. He would make that person regret ever coming into his home.

He opened the window and peered out. Nothing. He leaned back inside before he locked the window and headed outside to go to the roof.

Only two floors away from the roof, the girls took a deep breath.

"That was close, guys," Viola said. "Come on, I think if we come up here to the roof, we'll be all right."

Chloe watched Viola go to the roof and followed her.

Andrea, once again, brought up the rear. But this time, she made the mistake of looking down. The view down from the fire escape five floors up was dizzying, and it turned Andrea's face pale. She grabbed the railing with one hand and the step with the other. She felt her breath hitch in her throat as she blinked at the height.

"Andrea? What's going on?" Chloe asked. Then she heard a scream. "Shit, Viola!" she said. "Come on, Andrea!"

Andrea heard the scream before she shut her eyes and forced herself to suck it up. "That prick better not hurt her..." she said before she opened her eyes and raced up to the roof after her friends.

**xoxoxo**

Tsuzuki looked at the drawer and reached over to open it. Inside was a collection of letters piled high into the nightstand drawer. He grabbed a letter and read one aloud, "'Dear Michiko, I've been thinking about you today. I know you've been busy with work, so I won't keep you. Just wanted to let you know that I love you. I always have and I always will. Love, Satoshi.'"

"That's not the worst of them," Michiko said.

Kurama picked up another letter and read it: "'Dear Michiko, why do you have to let these other men touch you? You know I'm the only one that deserves to touch you. I want to make you happy. Don't turn me away. Love, Satoshi.'"

Hisoka picked up a letter and read it: "'Dear Michiko, why do you not want me anymore? Don't you know that I'm good for you? That I will love you when no one else will? Don't think you can turn me away and get away with it. I love you. Love, Satoshi.'"

Yusuke picked up another letter and opened the envelope. He read it out loud, "'Dear Michiko, you selfish bitch. How could you want me to leave you alone? I won't let anyone else have you. I'll...'"

'"'Kill you before another man dares to touch you,'" Michiko finished the letter. Then the memories of what had happened that night flooded into her mind. "Oh, no..."

"What?" Tsuzuki asked.

"Satoshi..." Michiko blinked, her brown eyes wide open. "Oh, no... You didn't leave the girls there alone, did you?"

"Yeah, they're fine, why?" Yusuke asked.

"Satoshi hates it when strangers are in his apartment!" Michiko shouted. "If he's capable of killing me... then..."

Tsuzuki's blood ran cold at the thought. _Andrea... she's there with the girls... and if he killed Michiko, then that means that they're in danger! _ he thought. "How long would it take to get to his apartment?" he asked her.

"Five minutes," Michiko answered. "But by then, it might be too late!"

"We have to get to the girls," Kurama said.

"I'll go with you," Michiko said.

"Look, it's kind of dangerous, you know..." Yusuke said.

"I understand your concern. I do," Michiko replied. "But if there is some way I can help your friends, then I want to go with you."

Tsuzuki took a deep breath. "All right," he said. "Let's stop him from taking more souls."

With that, the group left the place, the Guardians and Michiko teleporting away while the rest raced out of the apartment.

Within a minute, Tsuzuki, Hisoka, and Michiko teleported to the roof and were surprised to see the girls on the roof... and Satoshi on the roof with a gun aimed at the girls.

"What the hell were you doing in my apartment?" he asked the girls, not knowing of the trio that had just arrived.

"We know what you did to Michiko!" Chloe said to him. "We know you killed her!"

Satsohi chuckled before he laughed. "Oh, so you finally figured it out, huh?" he asked. "Well, it doesn't matter because when I'm done with you..." He cocked his gun back before pointing at Viola, Andrea, and Chloe one at a time in an "eeny meeny miny mo" fashion. "No one will tell a soul..."

"Satoshi!" Michiko shouted. "You get the hell away from them!"

Satoshi looked up at Michiko and his expression changed from angry to enraged. "You think you're in a position to tell me what to do?" he shouted, continuing to move the gun from one girl to another.

"It's me you want," Michiko said. "I know what you did to me."

Satoshi's attention then went to Michiko. "I couldn't let anyone else have you," he said. "You belonged with me."

"I stopped belonging to you when I broke up with you," Michiko said. "You can't own people, Satoshi."

"Those other men had no right to touch you..."

"That is none of your concern!" Michiko shouted. "After you got possessive and controlling, I had to leave you! You can't hurt the people you love just because you think you own them!"

Andrea looked at the girls. "We should get out of here," she whispered to them.

The trio backed away from Satoshi slowly.

"Don't you see, Michiko? I had to," Satoshi said. "I couldn't let anyone else enjoy you like I had. You were the only woman for me. And seeing you with those men... seeing them kiss you after they left... you have no idea how mad that made me."

"If you loved me, you would have let me go!"

"No, Michiko... it's the opposite," he said, aiming his gun at the three girls again, making them stop in mid-crawl. "If you had loved me, I wouldn't have to do what I did..."

"Stop it!" Michiko shouted, watching as Satoshi brought his gun up to Michiko's chest and fired. She looked down at her front.

"Oh, my God..." Chloe said, raising a hand to her mouth. Viola's dark silver eyes were wide open and Andrea's deep blue eyes were wide as saucers.

Michiko looked up at Satoshi, smiling. "That kind of hurt," she said, walking to the side of the building as Satoshi fired five more times, the bullets hitting her right shoulder, stomach, her chest again, her left shoulder and finally the area between her neck and her collarbone. "Satoshi... it ends here."

"What is she talking about?" Andrea asked.

Satoshi fired the gun again, this time hearing an empty click. "Damn it!" he cursed, throwing the gun onto the ground. "I'll just kill you again, you little bitch!" With that, he raced towards Michiko, who now showed no signs of running away.

"What is she doing?" Viola asked, almost to her feet. "He's going to..."

Before Viola could finish, everyone watched at Satoshi ran right through Michiko and fell off the roof. All that was heard from Satoshi was a scream before a crash and the sound of a car alarm going off.

Just at that moment, the door to the roof opened, and the three boys raced over to the group.

"What's that noise?" Yusuke asked.

Everyone walked over and looked down at the scene. Satoshi was face-down into the crushed car, broken glass all around him like a broken Christmas ornament. His head was tilted at an unnatural angle while the windshield wiper stabbed through his heart. The fact that he didn't get up had showed that he had died on impact, a somewhat ironic fate to someone who had tortured Michiko mercilessly before her death.

"It's over," Michiko said. "He won't hurt anyone anymore."

"Is he dead?" Chloe asked the group.

"Looks like it," Kuwabara answered just as Chloe held onto Yusuke and Viola held onto Kurama, the girls shielding their faces into the boys' shoulders.

Andrea, on the other hand, couldn't turn away. As she looked down, the floors from the roof made her dizzy, just as her breathing quietly quickened as she shoved her hands into her pockets before she closed her eyes.

"What will happen to them?" Kuwabara asked.

"They'll be taken to the Gates of Judgment," Hisoka answered. "Satoshi will have to answer for his crimes, and Michiko's soul will likely be at peace."

Michiko bowed gently at them. "I still feel responsible for what happened today," she said. "Your friends could have been hurt."

"Yeah, but we would have been fine," Chloe answered before she looked over at Andrea, who was still facing the scene. "Andrea?"

A hand on her shoulder snapped Andrea back to reality. The voices she had heard were warbled, almost as if she had been underwater.

"Andrea?"

This time the voice was very close to her, making Andrea open her eyes and look around. She saw a worried set of purple eyes looking at her. Her breathing was still shaky.

"Andrea? Are you all right?" Tsuzuki asked her, his hand still on her shoulder.

"I'm fine," Andrea answered, taking a deep breath. "I'm just glad this is over."

"I don't know about you guys," Yusuke said. "But we should get the hell off this roof."

"Yeah, you said it," Viola answered.

While the rest of the group went to the rooftop door leading downstairs, Kurama turned to see the pair still remaining. "Tsuzuki, Andrea, aren't you two coming?"

Hisoka looked at the redhead. "Kurama, they'll come down," he said before walking behind the group.

Kurama nodded before he walked after Hisoka.

"Want me to walk down with you?" Tsuzuki asked Andrea after they were alone.

"Sure, i-if you want to," she answered, letting him lead her to the rooftop door and down the stairs.

As they walked down the stairs, Chloe looked at Kurama. "Hey, did you notice that Andrea was kind of pale a few minutes ago?" she asked.

"I noticed," Kurama answered. "I think it's only from what just happened today. She'll be all right."

"I hope so..."

Two floors above the group, Andrea shut her eyes before she sat down on the fifth story's step. Tsuzuki sat down next to her and blinked at her. Was it from what she had just witnessed, seeing Satoshi falling to his own demise? He watched her stand back up and started back walking down the stairs again. He stood up and walked down after her and noticed that her face wasn't as pale as it had been on the roof and that the further down they went, the more color came back to Andrea's face. _Something's wrong with her,_ he thought. _I'll try to find out what that is later._

The team finally met on the sidewalk outside of the building. Yusuke had an arm around Chloe's shoulders while Kurama stood next to Chloe.

Yusuke looked at the group. "Look, I'm gonna go ahead and take Chloe home," he said.

"I'll do the same with Viola," Kurama agreed.

"Tsuzuki, after you take Andrea home, we have to deal with Satoshi and Michiko," Hisoka said.

"I can take her home," Kuwabara said. "You two should go on ahead."

While Tsuzuki wanted to personally take Andrea home, he knew Kuwabara had a good point. Hisoka and he had a job to do, and since Kuwabara had prior experience with Andrea, he'd be fine with letting him walk her home. "Okay," Tsuzuki conceded. "We'll be back as soon as we can."

Michiko smiled at the group. "Thank you for everything," she said before she and the Guardians of Death disappeared with Satoshi's soul for judgment.

**xoxoxo**

Kuwabara and Andrea sat in the living room of Andrea's apartment. Lust was finally dealt with, and that meant six more of the Deadly Sins to go. "How are you?" he asked her.

"I'm fine," Andrea answered, stretching on her loveseat. "I'll be all right here by myself, Kuwabara. You should head home. Shizuru will be all over your ass if you're late."

"Oh, yeah," Kuwabara said, standing up from the couch. "Don't want my sister jumping down my throat today. I'll see you around, Andrea."

"Sure," she said, watching Kuwabara go to the door. "See you around."

Kuwabara nodded before he left the apartment and closed the door behind him.

Andrea leaned back in her loveseat and looked at the ceiling. One sin down, six to go. She just hoped she was ready for anything.

**xoxoxo**

(Yay! So, this is the end of the Lust chapters. I'm so sorry that it took so long to get this done. I was dealing with homework and finals this past week, and I really wanted to give you guys a new chapter just before the holidays. So, happy holidays to you! And please, read and review.)


	10. Self-Indulgence

Self-Indulgence

By: Cece Williams

(Disclaimer: I do NOT own Yami no Matsuei or Yu Yu Hakusho. Never will. Thank God. Still own the three girls.)

(AN: I'm SO sorry for the lateness in this chapter. Exams and final projects don't work hand in hand here. And then there were projects I had to work on before Spring Break. But, here you go! Enjoy!)

-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-

The next day, Chloe and Viola headed to Andrea's apartment. Andrea was off of work for the day, so they were hoping to get her out of the house at least for a few hours. However, every time they asked her, she would either tell them that she didn't have time or that she was called into work. The last sin took a lot out of them, and they were going to check up on Andrea, since the girl looked rather pale after seeing Satoshi's corpse on the car, dead.

"Are you sure she'd want to?" Viola asked her friend as they reached the stairs. She wore a cream colored shirt with gray jeans and black shoes. "Maybe she'd want to take it easy today."

"Look, she'll look like a vampire if she stays in so much," Chloe reasoned as the duo walked up the stairs to Andrea's apartment. She wore a black plaid shirt with a white tank top under it, a pair of blue jeans and black shoes. "After what we saw yesterday, she might need some fresh air."

"Don't remind me," Viola said, shuddering at the memory of seeing Satoshi running through Michiko and landing on top of a car.

"I think it's good that she has Tsuzuki staying with her," Chloe said. "I think he likes her."

Viola looked at her friend after they had gotten to the third floor. "Andrea said that she didn't have the time to invest in a relationship," she said.

"Come on, a cute guy like that staying in her apartment, and she's not taking advantage of that? What planet is she living on?" Chloe then looked at her friend. "Soooooo, how about you and Shuichi? You like him, I bet."

Viola shook her head, her cheeks a very pale pink. "I-It's not like that," she said. "We're only friends. That's all."

Chloe raised an eyebrow, smirking slightly. "Sure," she said before they reached Andrea's apartment. "Well, we're here." She knocked on the door. "Let's just hope she didn't get called in again."

It was almost a minute before there was a sound of a door unlocking and the door opened, revealing a very-awake Andrea. She was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved peasant shirt with white socks. Her house slippers stayed on her feet while her hair was up in its usual ponytail.

"Hey, how are you doing?" Chloe asked her.

"Okay, I guess," Andrea said, moving back to let them in the apartment.

Chloe and Viola walked into her apartment and looked around as they took off their shoes. Just like Andrea to have the apartment picked up, even the sheets for the couch were put away. They had been inside her apartment before, so this was nothing new.

"Where's Tsuzuki?" Viola asked her.

"Breakfast run," Andrea answered. "Told him I'd cook, but well..." She shrugged. "He's probably the most stubborn man I've ever met."

"Well, can you blame him?" Chloe asked her. "Considering what happened yesterday."

"I'm fine," Andrea said, stretching her arms over her head.

"You were kind of pale yesterday," Chloe pressured. "Especially on the fire escape."

"That was a lapse," Andrea answered. "It won't happen again. I could have gotten you two killed."

"It's okay, really," Viola replied before sitting on the arm of the couch. "It wasn't your fault."

Andrea took a deep breath and put her hands over her face. She couldn't believe she nearly lost it yesterday. That wasn't like her! "Viola, you could have been killed..."

"Hey, we signed up for this like you did," Chloe said. "So you looked down and you looked like a ghost. That happens."

"Chloe..." Viola said, shifting her dark silver eyes at her friend before she turned back to Andrea and put a hand on her shoulder. "We signed up for this, remember? It's okay, really."

Andrea looked up at her friends, taking a deep breath. Being the oldest of the three, and being an orphan besides, meant that she'd have to act tough around her younger protégés. At the moment, however, she didn't feel that way.

"So, that's why we're here," Chloe said. "We wanted to see if you wanted to go with Viola and me out for the day."

"I-I don't know," Andrea answered.

"Come on," Chloe pressed. "You can even let Tsuzuki go with us. It'll be fun."

Andrea sat down on the loveseat and took a deep breath. She would have answered if she didn't hear the door open and a familiar voice in her apartment.

"I'm back!" Tsuzuki said, holding a bag of muffins in his hand. He looked at the girls in the apartment. "Hi, Chloe, Viola."

"Hi," Viola answered.

"Good morning," Chloe answered after her friend. "We were just checking up on you guys after yesterday."

"Oh, we're fine," he said. "You didn't have to come here just to do that."

"Actually," Viola said, looking at them. "We were asking Andrea if she wanted to go out with us today."

"I really don't feel like going," Andrea answered. "I mean, what if my boss calls me in for work and I'm not here?"

It hadn't even been a day after they had dealt with Lust, and Tsuzuki could tell that Andrea was stressed out about something. Was it about Satoshi's mangled corpse on the car? Could that have made her pale yesterday?

"Come on, Andrea, it's Saturday," Viola said. "It's not like your boss would drag you into work on the weekend."

Andrea took a deep breath. Did she really want to go? No. But did she think she would win against Chloe, Viola, and even Tsuzuki? Definitely not, as far as he was concerned, and if she thought she could claim she was fine after what she had witnessed the day before, she would be dead wrong. "Okay, " she conceded. "I'll go along with you. Just where are we going?"

Viola smiled at winning Andrea over. "Well, we were thinking to just make a day of it, you know? I mean, think about it. Yesterday was intense."

"Not sure if that's the right word," Andrea said, standing to her feet and stretching her arms over her head. Her peasant shirt lifted slightly as she shrugged her shoulders before lowering her arms back to her sides.

"Okay, maybe not intense," Viola replied. "Maybe... shocking."

"So, where are we going?" Tsuzuki asked them.

"Shinjuku and Akihabara," Chloe answered, smiling before looking at Tsuzuki. "Oh, wait... you don't know where they are, do you?"

"Just Shinjuku," he answered. "I'm really from out of town."

"Akihabara has a lot of really cool stuff," Chloe explained. "Isn't it called 'Electric Town,' Andrea?"

Andrea nodded. "Yeah," she answered. "Wasn't Kabukicho on the east side of Shinjuku?"

Chloe nodded. "I really hope we don't go there for a long time," she answered. "I wouldn't want to go back there."

Viola nodded in agreement.

Tsuzuki actually agreed. Kabukicho was a place that the girls did not need to go anymore, regardless of sunshine. It wasn't that he had a problem with going there, but at the same time, the amethyst-eyed Guardian could do with some time out of the apartment as well. It was more to the fact that three teenage girls without a chaperone didn't sit well with him, not after what had happened. He WAS a gentleman, after all.

"So, where to first?" Viola asked them. "We could go to Shinjuku. And stay away from that place, right?"

"Sounds good to me," Andrea answered.

Shinjuku was an amazing city, with tall skyscrapers and lighted billboards even with the sun shining. One of these buildings was called the Tokyo Metropolitan Governmental Center. It stood like a giant in a field of ants at its mercy. The foursome exited the train and left the station at Shinjuku.

"Oh, wow!" Chloe said, looking up at the building. "I heard that you can see all of Tokyo from this building! Isn't that cool?"

"Sounds like it is," Viola answered. "Come on, let's go."

-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-

With that, the four of them went inside the building and went to the elevator. Chloe pressed a button after they got into the elevator and watched the door close. After a while, the doors opened and they stepped out of the elevator. They walked from the elevator over to the observation decks, where Chloe's brown eyes shone with excitement and Viola's silver eyes sparkled with amazement.

"Oh, look at the view!" Chloe said, looking out the window. Shinjuku, and even Tokyo, looked tiny from the view. The people were barely noticeable, while the trees all looked like pieces of broccoli on a dinner plate. Other skyscrapers towered in the distance, and the houses all looked so tiny. Even Tokyo Tower seemed like a toy on a stick from a distance.

"Yeah, the people look like ants from up here," Tsuzuki said.

"It's so tiny from up here," Viola answered, looking down at the town. "Hey, Andrea, you should see it. It's gorgeous."

"I can see it just fine," Andrea answered from almost five feet away. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall away from the window, her face slowly getting paler by the minute. She felt her heart beating faster and faster until she thought for sure it would burst out of her chest, and she shoved her hands into her pockets as she softly tried to get her breathing under control.

"Are you sure?" Chloe asked her, looking behind her at the girl against the wall. "You're not seeing that much from there..."

"I-I'm fine, all right?" Andrea hadn't meant to shout, but she did. When she realized it, she looked at the door to the stairwell and raced to it.

"Andrea..." Before Viola had a chance to ask what was wrong, the door to the stairwell closed, and Andrea was gone. "What's gotten into her?"

"I'll check on her," Tsuzuki said. "You two just stay together, all right?"

"Sure," Viola answered, nodding as Tsuzuki went to the stairwell door.

He opened the door to the stairwell and looked. Andrea wasn't there, but he did hear a quiet voice get louder as he went down the stairs. Tsuzuki peered over the railing and saw Andrea sitting several floors down with her head lowered. As he got closer, he saw that her head on her knees and her arms wrapped around her legs. _She probably doesn't know I'm here,_ he thought before he finally stepped down and sat next to her. Now what he had heard was clearer.

"Ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, nana, hachi, kyuu, ju... one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten..."

Tsuzuki looked at the shaking hands over her legs and watched her lips move faster through the numbers. Now he knew what she was saying: one through ten in Japanese AND English. He gently moved his hand to her back. "Andrea, it's okay," he said gently.

Andrea blinked her eyes open, her heart still beating rapidly in her chest. "I-I'm fine..." she answered, her hands still shaking.

This time, Tsuzuki didn't believe her, and he was going to let her know it. "No, you're not," he said. "Is it the building that caused that outburst?"

Andrea sighed, taking a deep breath with her head still on her knees. "You wouldn't understand..."

"Try me."

Andrea rubbed her eyes and leaned back against the stair behind her. "Y-You promise not to tell anyone?" she asked.

"I promise."

Andrea blinked up at the worried yet comforting amethyst gaze before she looked back down at the landing below. "I-I..." She stopped. There was no way she could tell him she was scared of heights. No way! Not this tough teenage girl, not the girl who would have been more than willing to send Tsuzuki back to the Judgment Bureau as a woman for the rest of eternity. Not... not the girl sitting there and looking as if the world had ended. But as it stood, Tsuzuki wouldn't either shut up or leave her alone unless she said anything.

"I-I'm... I'm just scared of heights."

Amethyst eyes blinked at the girl next to him. Scared of heights? Tsuzuki couldn't have heard her right. "Heights?" he echoed. "Like..."

"Like this damn building, you idiot!" Andrea screamed suddenly before holding her trembling hands over her mouth. "S-Sorry..."

"It's all right," he consoled her, still keeping his hand on her back. "Everyone's scared of something. Don't tell Hisoka I said anything, but he's scared of the dark."

Andrea raised an eyebrow at him. "He'd probably kill you for telling me that," she said.

"I know, but still... everyone's scared of something, Andrea."

"It's not just that... yesterday..."

"What about yesterday?" he asked her.

Andrea took a deep breath. "When Chloe, Viola, and I were on that fire escape and Viola went on ahead, I looked down, and..." Her hands went to her face as she looked down again. "I couldn't move. I couldn't freaking MOVE! I-I heard Viola scream, and I couldn't MOVE. I could have gotten them killed!"

"Andrea, it's not like you knew he would go to the roof," Tsuzuki said.

"But I SHOULD have!" she said, breathing into her hands again.

"But you _couldn't_ have," he corrected her, keeping his hand on her back. "You're not a mind reader, Andrea. You can't possibly know everything at that moment. Besides, I didn't hear the girls blaming you for it."

"They probably wouldn't in front of me," she said.

"I doubt they would blame you for something like that," he said, gently patting her head. "I wouldn't, either." Tsuzuki gently stood to his feet before looking down at the auburn-haired girl on the stairs. "Come on, they're probably worried about you."

Andrea blinked and looked at him before she stood to her feet. "All right," she said. "But tell them, and I'll personally toss you from the 45th floor window myself. Got it?"

"Got it," he answered, leading the girl back up the stairs. _I don't want to know just HOW Andrea could do that,_ he thought to himself as they walked up four flights of stairs. He held the door open for her and walked behind her after she walked through the doorway.

"Hey, Andrea, are you okay?" Chloe asked her. "You just bailed a moment ago."

"I'm fine," Andrea answered. "Just brought back some bad memories with the height, you know?"

"Well, we're just glad you're okay," Viola answered, her dark silver eyes full of relief. "We thought with how fast you went out that you'd have fallen down the stairs or something."

"No, I'd have to have the IQ of a rock to do that," Andrea answered.

Chloe chuckled into her hand. "So, what do you think of something a little bit closer to the ground?"

"Works with me," Tsuzuki answered while Andrea nodded.

-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-

After the group got back to the ground floor, which if Andrea had been alone, she would have kissed, they looked around and snapped pictures on their cell phones before hopping on a train and headed to Akihabara. This was a different town than Shinjuku, primarily because of the billboards and the lights. The anime-themed places also stood out like sore thumbs. Tsuzuki could tell a difference simply because they were away from the Kabukicho area, and that enough made him happy. Anywhere away from that sinful place was good for him.

The group walked down the street now, looking at the billboards. Chloe and Viola looked around almost as if they were children, Andrea simply looked as if she was a mother, and Tsuzuki, well... he was like a mother hen, keeping an eye on the three girls. Maybe he was over worried about what Andrea had said to him, or maybe it was the fact that it was three teenage girls with him, but at the moment, he was fine with the situation.

Chloe looked up at a sign. "Kei Books," she said, stopping her friends in their tracks. "Hey, maybe there's some Kuroshitsuji manga in here!"

"You like that, too?" Viola asked her, her mouth open in shock. "I didn't know that!"

"Yeah, it's really freaking cool!" Chloe replied. "I think there's a musical or something playing today."

"That's why you wanted to drag Andrea out?" Viola crossed her arms over her chest.

"Well, no, but still..." Chloe shrugged her shoulders.

"I like musicals," Tsuzuki told them.

"You DO know what Kuroshitsuji is about, right?" Andrea asked him.

"Not really..."

Andrea took a deep breath before answering, "Kuroshitsuji is translated to Black Butler. It's set in England in the 1800s, and it's about a kid who's been dealt with some really bad stuff. Then he enters a contract with a demon to get revenge."

"Revenge for what?" Now Tsuzuki's curiosity looked to be getting the better of him.

"His parents," Andrea answered, her voice softening to hide the fact that she could understand the hell the main character had gone through. "They were killed when he was younger, and so, in a way, he's hell-bent on getting revenge on those who took them away from him."

Chloe looked at Andrea. "You never said you liked that series, Andrea..." she said, her brown eyes open in surprise.

"You never asked," Andrea answered, looking up at the sign. "Maybe we'll find it in here, then."

With that, they walked inside the building known as Kei Books. Inside were shelves upon shelves of items, ranging from manga and doujinshi to even body pillow cases. To the foursome, it looked almost like a library than a store. The shelves housed possibly more than a library could.

"Hey, look at this one!" Chloe said, handing each of them a copy of a doujinshi.

All four of them opened their copies before their faces ranged between pink and beet red with what they were reading.

Chloe's cheeks were tinged a strawberry milkshake color. "W-What... what is this?" she asked.

Viola's cheeks were the color of a pink crayon. "U-Um... why is she naked?" she asked.

Andrea's cheeks weren't any better. Hers were the color of a strawberry. "Forget that, why is HE naked?" she squeaked.

Tsuzuki's were the reddest of them all; his cheeks being the color of a beet. Sure he was the adult between the four of them, but even this made him blush. "W-What are they..." he asked as he turned a page. The page showed a nude couple of a man and a woman with the woman on top, her back arched in the throes of ecstasy. His hands were at her hips and holding them firmly. "O-Oh my..." he whispered before he closed the book, his hot, blushing face completely evident.

The girls followed his lead and closed their books before putting them back on the shelf.

"We should get out of here..." Andrea said, the blush on her face not going away.

Tsuzuki wordlessly agreed before he grabbed Andrea's arm and walked with her out of the store, Chloe and Viola very close behind.

"I don't think I want to know just what we were reading," Viola said, trying to calm her face down.

"I don't want to go back in there, period," Andrea said, shuddering from the image that was now implanted into her mind.

Now Tsuzuki had to turn their attention away from what not only he but the girls had seen. Considering he was the adult, he had to think of something they could definitely agree on. But what? He didn't want to traumatize them any more than they probably had been. "A-Anyone know a good place for lunch?" he asked.

"I think there's a tempura place not far from here," Viola answered. "And it's on the ground floor."

"Thank the Gods," Andrea mumbled before walking with them.

-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-

Tempura had never tasted as good as it did now. After what they had seen, they needed something in their stomachs. The girls thought they were in Heaven from how amazing the tempura looked, smelled, and tasted. Predictably, Tsuzuki already thought that way from the moment he walked in the door. The place was a welcome change from the bookstore they had walked out of; the bamboo plants on either side of the doorway almost made the place a serene getaway from the craziness from the outside.

As usual, Tsuzuki's ticket was more than Chloe and Viola's combined. Chloe looked stunned at the comparison of the tickets; Chloe and Viola's weren't that much, Andrea's was a little higher considering she had to order two fried tempura ice creams because Tsuzuki nabbed one before she could even blink, but Tsuzuki, well... that man could put food away. She felt sorry for Andrea for having to deal with this day in, day out.

"Andrea, how do you deal with this all the time?" Viola asked, looking over Chloe's shoulder at the large difference in the girls' tickets and the Guardian's.

"Hisoka has it worse," Andrea said. "He's dealt with the sugar vacuum here longer than I have."

"You do know I can hear you," Tsuzuki said, pointing at himself.

"I didn't say you were deaf," Andrea said, rolling her eyes.

Viola couldn't help but smile at the pair sitting across from her and Chloe. "You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd say that you two argue like a married couple," she said.

Andrea and Tsuzuki both looked at each other before leaning away from the other.

"I don't think so," Andrea answered, crossing her arms over her chest.

"We're just roommates," Tsuzuki added, waving his hands in front of him while they looked away from each other.

"If you say so," Viola answered them before looking away unbelievingly. How could two people not show any kind of affection towards the other? _Maybe_, she thought, _it's because she's quieter than he is. I mean, he's so talkative and funny, and Andrea's so... different. Almost like she can't stand him._

Andrea looked at her friend. "What's that supposed to mean?" she asked.

"I didn't mean anything," Viola answered her. "Just wondering how the two of you argue and you haven't killed him."

"Well, it'd be hard to do that," Andrea answered.

"You'd find a way, right?" Viola asked her.

"Probably."

"I can still hear you," Tsuzuki said the girls.

"Glad you're not deaf," Andrea answered. "So, when did you say this musical starts?"

Chloe looked at her watch. "In about two hours at this theater in Shinjuku," she answered. "We should go, guys."

With that, they paid for their food. Well, to be more accurate, Tsuzuki and Andrea argued about who'd pay for _her_ ticket while Viola and Chloe paid for theirs without an argument. He wanted to pay for it, as any good gentleman should. She told him that she'd be fine paying for it herself.

In the end, Tsuzuki won.

Viola looked at the formerly arguing pair. _They really do fight like a married couple,_ she thought as the foursome left the restaurant.

-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-

They decided to sit next to each other at the theater and as they sat down, Andrea looked at the bulletin for the musical for Kuroshitsuji called "The Most Beautiful Death in the World: A Thousand Souls and a Fallen Shinigami." She looked at the bulletin and her hand went to her mouth, a name looking quite familiar to her.

"Andrea? What's wrong?" Chloe asked her, leaning over Viola's seat to look at the bulletin.

"This man..." Andrea said, pointing to the kanji under the cast for the musical. She moved her finger down to where it stated who would be playing Sebastian Michaelis, the demonic butler in the musical. "Yuya Matsushita... he sang the ending song to the second season of Kuroshitsuji called 'Bird.'"

"His voice was really good in that," Viola said. "Andrea, you've seen BOTH seasons of that?"

"Yeah," she answered, leaning back in her seat. "The first season's the best, though." She looked at her cell phone before checking any messages. No messages. Andrea then turned her phone off. "Guys, we better turn the phones off before it starts."

The three obliged, turning off their cell phones before they looked up to the darkening lights. The show was about to begin.

Throughout the first part of the musical, they sat there, transfixed to the stage, where Ciel and Sebastian made their contract. The next scene had it where they were in the Phantomhive manor, where Sebastian dressed Ciel while he talked about what breakfast would the young master like to have. The quiet scene was interrupted by three people running into his chambers, one holding what looked to be a rocket launcher.

Andrea raised her eyebrow at the sight, but she blinked at Sebastian's rather loud, and demanding, voice at the trio on the stage.

"Bardroy! Mey-Rin! Finnian!" Sebastian shouted, rather upset at the bumbling trio. "What is the meaning of this? How dare servants storm into their master's bedchamber?"

"S-Sebastian, sir... w-we're sorry, but..." Mey-Rin, the maid with the large glasses, stammered before she bowed at the tall, dark butler on the stage.

"But we saw a mouse!" Finnian, a blond guy with a straw hat behind his head, likely a gardener, said with a panicked tone in his voice.

"L-Look! It's right by the young Master!" Bardroy, a taller man with an apron, said, looking at the young Master in the chair.

The foursome in the audience watched as the maid and the gardener hurried to pull their Master out of the chair before the chef fired the rocket launcher at the chair.

"Honestly, what a racket..." Sebastian said under his breath.

Tsuzuki and the girls watched as Sebastian looked to have picked up the "rat," grabbed a "bat," and "hit" the rat as if it was a baseball. They turned their heads up to try to look for the mouse in question.

"How did he do that?" Tsuzuki whispered to Andrea as the foursome went back to their original positions.

"Theater's an interesting thing, huh?" she whispered back, looking back to the stage.

_More like, _Tsuzuki thought, _Andrea's interesting. I didn't know Andrea knew anything about this kind of stuff. Or anything about her in general._ He decided to put the rest of his thoughts out of his head and, along with the girls, watch the musical. It seemed to hit a high note before the audience was told there was a twenty minute intermission and the lights were turned on again.

As in most theaters, the intermission was only good for getting up and stretching before having to sit back down. This was no exception, and the intermission seemed way too short for a musical of any kind. The plot was getting really good, really fast, and it seemed like the intermission was just teasing them with the ending of the first act, to keep their curiosity piquing, if you will. With a plot this good, one would think the second act would be better, and when the lights dimmed again for the second act, the foursome could only hear voices.

"Hey! Don't be so rough!"

"Oh, but it's so tight already..."

Andrea held a hand over her mouth, while Viola and Chloe's faces were beet red from what they were hearing. Tsuzuki was confused from what he was hearing. Were they... were they really... no, it couldn't be. Could it?

When the lights turned on, it showed the two owners of the voices, one in a long wig and a pink and white dress with Sebastian almost on top of him. Andrea tried hard not to laugh at how funny it looked that Ciel was in the dress. Then again, Andrea had seen the anime and read the manga. Maybe this musical wasn't as bad as it seemed.

Tsuzuki looked over at Andrea, who still had her hand over her mouth. Whether she was sick or trying hard not to laugh at the scene that was unfolding around them, he didn't know. What he _did_ know was that maybe there was more to Andrea than just looking tough and acting it as well. She was pretty, for sure, but he felt like he had to censor himself in front of her. He was staying with a girl, after all.

The rest of the musical had taken a sad and somber tone, and the acting was, to put it rather bluntly, superb. The ending was better than they had thought it would be, considering that Sebastian's actor was trying to dance like Michael Jackson. That made the girls giggle, even Andrea, and it was hard to get her to laugh considering what they had endured the day before. Tsuzuki even had to laugh at how the normally serious butler even broke character and danced like that.

"That was pretty good," Chloe said after the curtain had closed, signaling the end of the musical.

"Yeah, that was pretty good," Viola agreed, standing up and getting her purse.

Andrea got up from her seat and grabbed her purse. Even she had to admit, a day away from work was pretty good to have. It was hard for Andrea to admit that she was having fun today. She looked in her purse and grabbed her cell phone to turn it on. No missed messages. Maybe Viola was right; she wouldn't be called into work on the weekend.

"Still haven't been called in?" Chloe asked her.

"Nope," Andrea answered, putting her phone in her purse again. "Maybe it's not busy there today."

"Is it usually busy on a Saturday?" Tsuzuki asked her.

"Normally," she answered. "But on some Saturdays, and it's not very often mind you, it's not that busy. Middle of the month, you know?"

_Why does Andrea have to work so much?_ Tsuzuki thought to himself. _Even on a day off, she's looking at her phone an awful lot._

"So, where to next?" Chloe asked them.

Viola looked at her watch. 17:57. "I don't know, really," she answered. "Maybe we should head home. I kind of have to study for that midterm coming up."

"Oh, don't remind me," Chloe complained, holding a hand to her head. "I can't figure out that formula in Biology. You're lucky you have Shuichi as a tutor."

Viola blushed slightly. "I-It's nothing, really. It's just that he's a friend, that's all," she said before looking at the floor.

"Hey, that reminds me," Chloe said. "Andrea, I haven't seen you go to school for a while. Are you all right, or did you graduate early?"

Andrea blinked. "Yeah, I'm fine, I just... transferred somewhere else," she answered. "Close to home."

"Oh," Viola said gently. "Well, maybe we should head back home. I don't think our teacher is going to give us a break on the midterm."

With that, the foursome left the theater, all the while Tsuzuki was wondering about Andrea again. Working like she was and transferred to a school close to home, yet he had never seen her leave the apartment in a uniform for any kind of high school. _Maybe it's a small school,_ he thought as he walked with the girls.

-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-

Andrea sat down on the loveseat, hanging up her cell phone. "Viola and Chloe got home safely," she said, plugging her cell phone up to the charger.

"That's good," Tsuzuki answered, still unnerved about Andrea's remark about school. "So... where do you go to school?" he asked her.

Andrea looked at him. "What do you mean?" she asked him.

"Well, it's a simple question, isn't it?"

"I just take some classes," Andrea told him.

"What kind?"

Andrea was about to snap a remark at him before she heard her ringtone. Relieved that the answer would come later, she grabbed her phone and answered it, "Hello?"

"Andrea?" Kurama's voice came from the other end.

"What is it?" she asked.

"It's about the next sin, Gluttony," Kurama answered. "It appears that the cause for it is to over-indulge in certain food and drink."

"Makes sense," she answered. "So, you found who it is?"

"Hisoka told me who it is."

"Who?"

-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-

(Well, it's finally starting again. Looks like no one will get a break in this go round. Neither will I. Exams are coming up REALLY soon and the next chapter might not come out until after it's all over. Yep. So, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and I did NOT spoil the ending for the musical. Watch it on Youtube, I highly recommend it. Please read and review, and if you REALLY enjoyed the story thus far, please follow it, as I will finish this story to its end.)


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